"  '.   ^; '"'-l:  l^r'-:-  :^*"':''--^^ 

STATELY    HOMES    IN 
AMERICA 


o 

>       > 
O 


STATELY  HOMES  IN 
AMERICA 

FROM    COLONIAL   TIMES 
TO    THE    PRESENT    DAY 


BY 

HARRY    W.    DESMOND 

AND 

HERBERT     CROLY 


PROFUSELY    ILLUSTRATED 


D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 
NEW    YORK  ::  MCMIII 


Ha  1  a  OS 


Copyright,  1903,  by 
D.   APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


Published  October,  1903 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER    I 

Page 

Men  Who  Build  Fine  Houses 3 


CHAPTER    II 
The  Colonial  Residence 41 

CHAPTER    III 
The  Meaning  of  the  Transitional  Dwelling     .        .     97 

CHAPTER    IV 
The  Character  of  the  Transitional  Dwelling  .         .137 

CHAPTER    V 
The  Beginnings  of  the  Greater  Modern  Residence    .211 

CHAPTER    VI 

The  Modern  American  Residence — Economic  and  So- 
cial Conditions 279 

[v] 

216973 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER    VII 

Page 

The  Modern  American  Residence — Its  Exterior  .         -351 


CHAPTER    VIII 
The  Modern  American  Residence — Its  Interior  .         .  443 


[vi] 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


Page 


Frontispiece 
.    Facing  page   i 


Mount  Vernon 

,,              ,,          {rear  view) 
HoMEWOOD,  Baltimore,  Md 

Van  Rensselaer  Manor-House,  Albany,  N.  Y. 
Washington  House,  Germantown,  Pa.  . 
Whitehall,  near  Annapolis,  Md.  . 

„  {rear  view)     ..... 

Penhollow  House,  Portsmouth,  N.  H.  . 
Emerton  House,  Salem,  Mass.        .         . 
"  MoNTPELiER,"  Orange  Co.,  Va.     . 
White  House,  Washington,  D.  C.  : 

East  Room  ..... 

State  Dining-Room        .... 
Residence  of  the  late  A.  T.  Stewart,  New  York  City 

Hallway       ..... 

Drawing-Room 

Bedroom      .... 

[vii] 


5 

9 
13 
17 
19 

23 
27 

29 

33 
37 

43 
45 
49 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Residence  of  the  late  William  H.  Vanderbilt,  New 
York  City: 

Japanese  Room     .         .         .         .         .         .         -Si 

Drawlng-Room     .         .         .         .         .         .         -55 

Dinlng-Room        .......     59 

Picture  Gallery     .  .  .  .  .  .  .61 

Residence  of  J.  Pierpont  Morgan,  New  York  City  : 

Staircase       ........     65 

Dining-Room        .......     69 

Drawing-Room     .......     73 

Residence  of  the  late  Henry  Villard,  New  York  City  : 

Exterior        ........     77 

Hall  and  Reception-Room      .         .         .         .         •79 

Music-Room  .......     83 

Residence  of  George  P.  Baker,  Seabright,  N.  J.    .         .     87 
Residence  of  Charles  J.  Osborn,  Mamaroneck,  N.  Y.    .     89 
Residence  of  William  D.  Sloane,  Lenox,  Mass.     .         .     93 
The  Marquand  Residence,  New  York  City: 

Dining-Room         .......     99 

Moorish   Room    .......   103 

Hall 105 

Bedroom      ........   109 

The  Washburn  Residence,  Minneapolis,  Minn.  .  -113 
Residence  of  the  late  Potter  Palmer,  Chicago,  III.  .  115 
Residence  of  Edwin  N.  Benson,  Philadelphia,  Pa.       .  119 

Residence  of  Mrs.  Henry  P.  Kidder,  Beverly  Farms, 

Mass.         . -123 

[  viii  ] 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Residence  of  Mrs.  William  Astor,  Newport,  R.  I.  . 

"  Ellerslie,"  Residence  of  Levi  P.  Morton,  Rhinecliff, 


Page 
125 


N.  Y I 


29 


The  Glessner  Residence,  Chicago,  III. 

"  Ochre  Court,"  Residence  of  Ogden  Goelet,  Newport, 
R.  I.: 

Exterior       ........ 

Dining-Room        .  .  .  .  .  . 

Hall 

Residence  of  Anson  Phelps  Stokes,  Pittsfield,  Mass.  . 

"  The  Breakers,"   Residence  of  the  late   Cornelius 
Vanderbilt,  Newport,  R.  I. : 

Exterior 

Dining-Room 

Hall  and  Stairway 

Library 

Main  Hall  . 

Residence  of  Robert  Goelet,  Newport 


133 


139 

143 

145 
149 


R.  I 


"  Belcourt,"  Residence  of  O.  H.  P.  Belmont 
R.  L: 


Exterior        ..... 

Interior  Court      .... 

Second-Story  Hallway  . 
The  Thaw  Residence,  Newport,  R.  I.    . 
Residence  of  H.  McK.  Twombly,  Newport,  R.  I 
Residence  of  Frederick  W.  Vanderbilt,  Newport,  R.  I 

[ix] 


Newport 


153 

159 
163 

165 
169 


173 

175 
179 

183 
187 
191 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

The  Marble  House,  Newport,  R.  1 195 

"  The  Crossways,"  Residence  of  Stuyvesant  Fish,  New- 
port, R.  I. .  197 

Residence  of  E.  J.  Berwind,  Newport,  R.  I. : 

Hall    .........  201 

Stairway       ........  205 

Residence  of  Henry  W.  Poor,  Tuxedo,  N.  Y.  : 

Exterior        .  .  ,  .  .  .  ,  .213 

Garden         .  .  ,  .  .  .         .  .215 

Gallery         .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .219 

"  BiLTMORE,"  Residence  of  George  Vanderbilt,  Ashe- 
VILLE,  N.  C. : 

Exterior        ........  223 

Rear  View  ........  225 

Aquatic  Garden    .......  229 

Entrance       .  .  .  .  ,  .  .  .  233 

Residence  of  Frederick  W.  Vanderbilt,  Hyde  Park, 
N.  Y. : 

Exterior       ........   237 

Another  View       .......   239 

"  The  Turrets,"  Residence  of  J.  J.  Emory,  Bar  Harbor, 

Me.   ..........  243 

Residence  of  R.  G.  Paterson,  Washington,  D.  C.  .        .  245 

Residence  of  C.  J.  Blair,  Chicago,  III.: 

Exterior        ........  249 

Drawing-Room     .......   253 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

''  Whitehall,"    Residence   of   H.    M.    Flagler,    Palm 
Beach,  Fla.  : 

Exterior       .         .         .         .         .         .         .         -257 

Ballroom      ........   259 

Music-Room  .         .         .         .         .         .         -263 

Dining-Room        .......   265 

Hallway       .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .   269 

Residence  of  Claus  Spreckels,  San  Francisco,  Cal.    .  273 

The  Huntington,  Flood,  and  Crocker  Residences,  San 

Francisco,  Cal 281 

Residence  of  Lawrence  C.  Phipps,  Pittsburg,  Pa.  : 

Exterior       .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .285 

Hallway       .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .289 

Dining-Room         .  .  .  .  .  .  .291 

Smoking-Room      .......   295 

Residence  of  Clement  Newbold,  Philadelphia,  Pa.  : 

Interior  Court      .         .         ...         .         .  .   299 

Reception-Room    .         .         .         .         .         .  -3*^1 

Dining-Room         .          .          .          .          .          .  .  305 

Drawing-Room     .......  309 

Main  Stair  Hall  .          .          .          .          .          .  -311 

Residence  of  E.  D.  Morgan,  Newport,  R.  I.  .         .  -315 

The  Brokaw  House,  New  York  City: 

Exterior        .          .          .          .          .          .          .  -319 

Drawing-Room     .         .         .         .         .         .  .321 

Drawing-Room     .          .          .          .          .          .  -325 

[xi] 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Residence  of  F.  K.  Bourne,  Oakdale,  L.  I. : 

Exterior       .         .         .         .         .         .  .  .  329 

Drawing-Room     .         .         .         .         .  .  '331 

Residence  of  William  Edgar,  Newport,  R.  I.  .  .335 

Residence  of  Mrs.   Clarence  W.  Bowen,  New  York 
City: 

Hall    .........  339 

Library         .  .  .  .  .  ,  .  -341 

Dining-Room        .......  345 

Residence  of  Henry  W.  Poor,  New  York  City  : 

Hallway       .         .         .         .         .         .         .         -353 

Hall  Mantelpiece  .         .         .         .         .         -357 

Drawing-Room  Mantelpiece  ,         .         .         -359 

Conservatory         .  .  .  .  .  .  -363 

Second-Story  Hallway  .         .         .         .         ,         .367 

Dining-Room        .  .  .  .  .  .  -371 

Drawing-Room     .         .         .         .         .         .         -373 

"  Georgian  Court,"  Residence  of  George  Gould,  Lake- 
wood,  N.  J.: 

Exterior       .          .          .  .  .  .  .  .  377 

Exterior  (another  view)  .  .  .  .  .381 

Stairway       .         .         .  .  .  .  .  -3^5 

Dining-Room        .          .  .  .  .  .  -387 

Fountain       .          .          .  .  .  .  .  .391 

Drawing-Room     .         .  .  .  ;  .  '395 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Residence  of  P.  A.  B.  Widener,  Philadelphia,  Pa.: 

Exterior        ........  399 

Exterior  (another  view)         .         .         .         .         .401 

Hall 405 

Bedroom      ........  409 

Residence  of  Alexander  R.  Peacock,  Pittsburg,  Pa.: 

Exterior       .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .413 

Hall 417 

Music-Room  .         .         .         .         .         ,         -419 

Library         ........  423 

The  Bergner  Residence,  Ambler,  Pa.  : 

Exterior       ........  427 

Hall    .........  429 

Residence  belonging  to  William  Waldorf  Astor,  New 

York  City ■       .         .         .  433 

Residences  belonging  to  William  Waldorf  Astor,  New 

York  City 437 

The  Tiffany  House,  New  York  City: 

Studio  .         .         .         ...         .         .  445 

Dining-Room        .  .      -    .  .  .  .  .  449 

Fireplace      .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .451 

Residence  of  Andrew  Carnegie,  New  York  City  .         -455 
Residence  of  Clarence  Mackay,  Roslyn,  L.  I. : 

Exterior        ........  459 

Billiard-Room       .  .  .  .  .  .  .461 

Stairway       ........  465 

Drawing-Room     .......  469 

Drawing-Room   (another  view)      .  .  .  -471 

[  xiii  ] 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Residence  of  William  C.  Whitney,  Westbury,  L.  I. : 

Gallery  ........  475 

Living-Room         .......  479 

Library         .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .481 

Residence  of  William  C.  Whitney,  New  York  City  : 

Drawing-Room     .         .         .         .         .         .         .485 

Hall 487 

Stairway       .  .  .  .  .  .  .  •491 

Library         ........  495 

Dining-Room         .......  497 

Residence  of  the  late   Cornelius  Vanderbilt,   New 
York  City: 

Exterior       ........   501 

Vestibule      ........   503 

Moorish  Room     .......   507 

Stairway       .         .         .         .         .         .         .         '511 

Dining-Room  Mantelpiece     .  .  .  .  -513 

Residence  of  Girard  Foster,  Lenox,  Mass.: 

Exterior       .         .         .         .         .         .         .         '517 

Garden         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         -519 

Residence  of  Mrs.  Elliot  F.   Shepard,   Scarborough, 

N.  Y. : 

Exterior       ........   523 

Pergola         .  .  .  .  .  .  .  -527 

Garden         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         -529 

[xiv] 


MEN    WHO    BUILD    FINE    HOUSES 


CHAPTER    I 
Pitn  W^o  l3uilD  fine  1$oum 

URING  the  past  fifteen  or  twenty  years 
there  have  been  built  in  the  United 
States  a  large  number  of  expensive  and 
magnificent  private  dwellings.  These 
houses  have  had  their  predecessors,  of 
course,  but  hardly  any  precursors.  They  are  as  different 
in  size  and  magnificence  from  the  earlier  types  of  Ameri- 
can residence  as  the  contemporary  "sky-scraper"  is  from 
the  old  five-story  brick  office.  And  since  they  are  a  com- 
paratively new  fact  in  American  domestic  architecture,  it 
may  be  inferred  that  they  are  the  expression  of  similarly 
new  facts  in  American  economic  and  social  development. 
They  are  the  peculiar  product,  that  is,  partly  of  the  most 
recent  American  architectural  ideas,  and  partly  of  the  tastes, 
the  ambitions,  the  methods,  and  the  resources  of  contem- 
porary American  captains  of  industry. 

No  apology  is  necessary  for  offering  to  the  public,  in  a 
permanent  form,  a  full  illustration  and  explanation  of  some 
of  the   larger    and    more   sumptuous    of   these    dwellings. 

[3] 


;i'-'    STATELY  HOMES    IN    AMERICA 

They  naturally  arouse  a  lively  curiosity,  and  this  curiosity 
is  perfectly  legitimate,  because  the  buildings  are,  both 
from  the  architectural  and  social  point  of  view,  novel  and 
representative.  They  furnish,  perhaps,  the  most  complete 
and  significant  example  which  has  yet  been  evoked,  of  the 
sort  of  things  which  give  esthetic  pleasure  to  certain  se- 
lected Americans  of  the  present  day ;  and  the  best  witness 
to  this  fact  is  the  effect  which  they  have  upon  foreign  vis- 
itors. There  was  a  time  when  European  travelers  in  the 
United  States  found  nothing  to  attract  their  attention  in 
our  domestic  architecture.  Their  references  to  it  are 
most  casual. 

Mrs.  Trollope,  who  was  interested  in  such  things,  ig- 
nores our  dwellings  until  she  reaches  New  York,  and  then 
devotes  only  a  few  lines  to  their  description.  Their  lack 
of  distinction  fitted  in  very  well  with  De  Tocqueville's 
views  about  the  commonplace  esthetic  character  of  Ameri- 
can life.  Frederika  Bremer  published  in  1853  ^^^  ^^^" 
umes  upon  the  "  Homes  of  the  New  World,"  apparently 
without  finding  anything  worthy  of  description  in  the 
"home"  buildings.  Of  course.  Miss  Bremer  was  a  high- 
minded  person,  and  used  the  word  "  home  "  to  express  a 
spiritual  rather  than  a  material  meaning ;  nevertheless,  her 
attitude  and  that  of  the  others  is  significant.  There  seems 
to  be  a  tacit  understanding  among  travelers  in  this  country 
,    before  the  war  that  the  surroundings  of  American  domestic 

[4] 


MEN  WHO  BUILD  FINE   HOUSES 

life  presented  nothing  worthy  of  attention.  Even  Mr. 
Bryce,  at  a  very  much  later  period,  passes  over  this  aspect 
of  American  social  growth  with  no  specific  consideration. 
The  contemporary  European  observer,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
immediately  attracted  and  impressed  by  our  domestic  archi- 
tecture. He  may  not  altogether  like  it ;  he  probably  mis- 
understands its  significance,  but  he  cannot  ignore  it.  Our 
larger  dwellings  have  become  conspicuous  in  the  great  show 
of  American  life. 

It  would  be  strange  if  this  were  not  the  case,  for  a 
great  deal  of  money  and  talent  have  been  expended  in  the 
effort  to  make  them  effective.  The  money  would  not, 
of  course,  have  counted,  had  not  the  talent  been  there  to 
use  it ;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  very  best  architectural 
ability  and  training  which  the  country  possesses  has  been 
employed  upon  these  houses.  If  one  were  to  enumerate 
the  contemporary  American  designers  whose  work  is 
most  distinguished,  and  whose  reputation  has  the  best 
chance  of  proving  permanent,  the  names  would  include 
those  which  are  given  under  the  plates  of  this  book,  and 
not  very  many  besides.  Moreover,  the  better  American 
architects  have  had  in  the  case  of  these  dwellings  a  freer 
hand  than  they  have  had  in  any  other  important  class  of 
work. 

The  designing  of  commercial  buildings,  of  churches, 
and  of  institutions  is  hampered  by  severe  restrictions  of 

[7] 


STATELY  HOxMES    IN    AMERICA 

money  and  of  space.  The  architect,  from  the  time  he  lays 
out  the  first  sketches  on  the  boards  until  the  time  he  turns 
over  the  keys  to  the  owner,  is  confronted  by  the  most  rigid 
practical  requirements,  and  the  most  detailed  supervision 
and  criticism.  Naturally,  he  is  not  entirely  emancipated 
from  such  supervision  and  criticism  when  he  comes  to 
design  a  rich  man's  residence ;  and  in  the  case  of  a  house 
erected  in  New  York  City,  the  site  at  his  disposal  is  often 
far  from  satisfactory  ;  but  still,  on  the  whole,  the  planning 
of  such  building  is  a  matter  of  easy  adjustment,  while  in 
the  design  and  the  decorations  he  can  do  very  much  as  he 
pleases.  He  is  treated,  that  is,  by  his  clients,  as  a  thor- 
oughly competent  expert,  whose  training  gives  him  a  cer- 
tain authority,  and  who  is  to  be  allowed,  within  limits,  to 
have  his  own  way. 

It  follows  that  these  dwellings  are  the  better  American 
architect's  characteristic  method  of  expression.  They  show 
him,  as  near  as  possible,  in  an  easy  and  natural  frame  of 
mind.  The  "  sky-scrapers  "  are  triumphs  of  engineering, 
but  not  of  architecture.  The  architect  designs  them  be- 
cause he  has  to  do  so,  but  he  designs  his  big  residences  out 
of  the  fulness  of  his  knowledge,  and  with  the  best  will  in 
the  world.  They  betray  his  likes  and  dislikes,  his  aesthetic 
traditions  and  tendencies,  and  the  limitations  both  of  his 
training  and  his  point  of  view.  They  betray,  for  instance, 
his  conservatism,  his  impersonality,  his  French  predisposi- 

[8] 


/ 


'■  \ 


MEN  WHO   BUILD  FINE  HOUSES 

tions,  and  finally  his  preference  for  aesthetic,  rather  than 
structural  and  social  proprieties.  What  he  wants  above 
all  is  to  get  a  "stunning  "  effect;  and  he  is  comparatively 
indifferent  whether  that  "  stunning  "  effect  is  anything 
more  than  an  architectural  picture.  It  is  as  if  American 
designers  were  reacting  violently  from  the  neglect  with 
which  the  purely  aesthetic  point  of  view  was  treated  in  this 
country  until  a  few  years  back,  and  are  now  determined  to 
pay  any  price  for  a  good-looking  result. 

Be  it  straightway  added  that  the  American  architect 
succeeds  in  what  he  attempts.  The  town  and  country 
houses  which  he  designs,  particularly  his  interiors,  are 
nothing  if  not  "  stunning."  He  has  had  it  in  his  mind 
to  reproduce  on  our  soil,  buildings  as  interesting  and  as 
effective  as  the  great  historic  mansions  of  Europe ;  and  his 
residences,  if  they  possess  only  the  secondary  interest  of  an 
historical  imitation,  are  in  a  very  real  sense  to  be  classed 
with  the  palaces  of  the  Italian  princes,  the  chateaux  of  the 
French  nobility,  and  the  great  country-seats  of  the  English 
landed  aristocracy  and  gentry.  Of  course,  there  are  dif- 
ferences vast  and  innumerable  between  these  American 
residences  and  their  historic  predecessors,  and  many  of 
these  differences  are  the  immediate  result  of  the  palpable 
fact  that  the  latter  were  **  the  real  thing,"  while  the  former 
are  only  a  sincere,  ambitious,  and  necessary  pretence.  Yet 
in  spite  of  these  differences,  the  classification  can  be  main- 

["] 


STATELY  HOMES    IN    AMERICA 

tained  on  good  grounds.  Unlike  any  previous  type  of 
residence  erected  in  this  country,  these  great  modern 
dwellings  are  something  more  than  personal  and  domestic 
products,  something  more  than  pleasant  and  appropriate 
houses,  in  which  to  live  and  bring  up  a  family ;  and  this 
**  something  more"  stands  for  a  different  point  of  view  on 
the  part  of  their  owners.  They  indicate  on  the  part  of 
^  these  gentlemen,  not  the  pride  of  station  and  position  of 
;'  a  European  noble,  but  a  very  conscious  delight  in  the  op- 
portunities to  be  publicly  effective,  which  are  offered  to 
them  by  their  wealth  and  by  the  freedom  of  American  life. 
They  exist,  in  part  at  least,  in  order  to  display  that  wealth, 
and  to  celebrate  those  opportunities  in  a  worthy  and  con- 
spicuous manner  ;  and  it  is  this  fact  that  puts  them  in  a 
different  class  from  other  American  residences.  They  are 
the  outcome  of  a  certain  kind  of  social  and  aesthetic  ambi- 
tion, and  thus  unmistakably  suggest  the  effective  promi- 
nence and  the  grand  style  of  their  European  predecessors. 
The  epithet  that  comes  nearest  to  describing  compre- 
hensively the  most  characteristic  of  these  houses,  is  the  fa- 
miliar newspaper  adjective,  "  palatial."  They  are  the 
dwellings  of  merchant  princes,  comparable,  not  in  artistic 
originality  and  propriety,  but  in  general  atmosphere  and 
style,  to  the  palaces  of  the  Florentine  and  Venetian  no- 
bility. Of  course,  there  are  many  very  handsome  Ameri- 
can residences  which  do  not  fit  this  description  at  all,  and 

[12] 


MEN  WHO  BUILD  FINE   HOUSES 

which,  SO  far  from  having  anything  palatial  about  them, 
are  merely  the  unobtrusive  homes  of  wealthy  gentlemen  ; 
but  in  an  introduction  such  as  this,  it  is  only  characteris- 
tic tendencies  which  can  be  described,  and  the  typical 
big  American  residence  of  to-day  is  more  like  an  Italian 
palace  than  it  is  like  anv  other  historic  type  of  residence. 
This  comparison  will  have  to  be  justified  from  an  archi- 
tectural point  in  another  chapter.  Here  I  merely  wish  to 
indicate  that  certain  suggestive  analogies  can  be  named  be- 
tween the  social  standing  and  psychological  point  of  view 
of  the  former  owner  of  an  Italian  palace  and  the  present 
owner  of  a  typical  American  chateau. 

The  nobles  of  Renaissance  Italy  were  not  a  landed 
aristocracy  with  a  definite,  time-honored,  and  unimpeach- 
able social  status.  Except  in  the  case  of  Venice,  they 
were  for  the  most  part  self-made  men,  or  at  least,  were 
the  immediate  descendants  of  self-made  men.  They  were, 
that  is,  usurpers,  who  had  to  fight  for  their  positions,  and 
who  lived  lives  of  strong  and  perilous  excitement.  In 
many  cases,  also,  they  were  merchants  and  bankers. 
Their  power  was  founded  as  much  upon  commerce  as 
upon  military  force ;  but  it  should  be  added,  no  social 
stigma  attached  to  power  and  prominence  acquired  in  this 
way.  They  were  not  like  the  Fuggers  of  Augsburg,  or 
Jacques  Coeur,  socially  inferior  to  a  landed  aristocracy 
which  constituted  an  estate  of  the  realm. 

[■5] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

The  Italy  of  that  time  was,  with  obvious  limitations, 
a  rough  democracy,  in  which  any  man,  who  had  the 
necessary  luck,  brains,  and  will,  might  struggle  to  the  top 
and  fight  for  the  privilege  of  staying  there.  The  houses 
in  which  these  men  lived  reflected  their  manner  of  life  and 
their  social  status.  They  wished  these  houses  to  be  effec- 
tive and  conspicuous  ;   to  display  their  power,  their  wealth, 

^their  pride  of  success  and  life ;  and  they  were  not  re- 
strained from  so  doing  by  the  fear  that  their  wealth  might 
be  filched  from  tliem  by  their  political  masters,  or  by  the 
consciousness  that  after  all  the  best  figure  they  could  cut 
was  that  of  a  "  bourgeois  gentilhomme." 

\  The  modern  American  millionaire  has,  under  totally 
different  conditions,  some  very  similar  characteristics.  He 
is,  in  the  first  place,  a  self-made  man,  or  the  son  of  one. 
Economically  and  socially,  he  is,  if  not  a  usurper,  at  least 
an  experiment.  Never  before  have  such  vast  quantities  of 
wealth  and  such  enormous  powers  for  good  or  evil  been 
concentrated  in  the  hands  of  private  citizens.  As  yet,  no 
one  can  say  with  any  certainty  what  the  outcome  will  be 
— whether,  that  is,  the  great  American  fortunes  will  be- 
come a  national  and  social  danger,  or  whether  they  will 
constitute  excellent  humanizing  and  economic  agencies. 
There  are  tendencies  which  look  in  both  directions  ;  and 
the  whole  movement,  of  which  they  are  a  part,  is  still  in 

its  earliest  and  most  tentative  stages. 

[i6] 


<•  -^  ■-. 


m 

^^^^^B||^\                                turn, 

^H 

lis  f*^ 
1  "r" 

^^^^K'^' 

ft 

MEN   WHO  BUILD   FINE   HOUSES 

The  point  is,  however,  that  the  position  of  these  mil- 
lionaires is  insecure,  or  unstable ;  they  are  still  fighting  to 
maintain  or  to  advance  their  industrial  standing ;  their 
heads  are  teeming  with  bold  and  far-reaching  plans  of  in- 
dustrial organization ;  they  are  continually  taking  large 
risks,  and  undergoing  the  high  excitement  incident  to  the 
achievement  of  well-planned  but  hazardous  schemes  ; 
every  circumstance  combines  to  make  them  conscious  of 
their  power,  their  opportunities,  and  the  flexibility  and 
daring  necessary  to  turn  this  power  and  these  opportunities 
to  good  account.  It  is  still  necessary  for  them  to  play  the 
game — and  play  it  all  the  time. 

No  doubt  it  is  a  somewhat  narrow  game,  compared  with 
that  played  by  an  Italian  despot.  The  American  million- 
aire is  not  risking  his  life.  It  rarely  happens  that  he  is 
risking  even  his  accumulated  fortune  ;  he  is  occupied 
merely  with  schemes  to  increase  it ;  but  these  schemes 
require  so  much  breadth  of  mind  and  imagination,  and 
so  closely  resemble  in  method  and  effect  great  political 
constructions  and  combinations,  that  their  authors  de- 
serve comparison  with  the  Italian  nobles — even  though 
the  risks  of  the  latter  were  greater,  and  their  natures 
more  profoundly  and  completely  stirred.  The  American 
**  Barons  "  have  not  as  yet  succumbed  to  the  great  dan- 
ger of  money-spinners  and  become  mere  annuitants — that 
is,    economic    parasites.      They  are    still    much   more  in- 

[21] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

terested  in  playing  the  game  than  in  pocketing  or  spend- 
ing the  stakes. 

Of  course,  some  of  them  spend  money  freely  enough, 
for  unless  they  did  there  would  be  no  residences  such  as 
are  illustrated  in  this  book.  Yet  since  these  men  are 
really  living  a  life,  instead  of  reaping  the  reward  of 
someone  else's  life,  it  is  no  wonder  that  their  residences 
show  something  of  the  same  pleasure  in  rich  and  "  stun- 
ning "  furniture  and  fabrics,  something  of  the  same  love 
of  strong  and  compelling  effects,  something  of  the  same 
willingness  to  advertise  their  wealth  and  power — as 
those  of  the  Italian  nobles  formerly  did. 

In  one  respect,  however,  the  position  of  these  Italian 
despots,  however  insecure,  was  very  much  more  definite 
than  that  of  the  American  rich  man  of  to-day.  They 
were,  except  in  certain  instances,  such  as  those  of  the  ear- 
lier Medici,  officially  recognized  as  public  leaders.  Their 
wealth,  while  frequently  possessing  a  commercial  origin, 
was  intimately  and  indissolubly  associated  in  those  turbu- 
lent times  with  political  power  and  official  position.  In 
this  respect  American  millionaires  occupy  a  totally  differ- 
ent situation.  In  the  course  of  accumulating  their  for- 
s  tunes,  they  have  frequently  made  use  of  not  very  reputable 
political  agencies ;  but  although  they  have  exercised  at 
different  times  great  political  power,  they  have  rarely 
sought  that  power  for  its  own  sake.     Their  status  has  not 


13 
o 

X    c 

O     2 
O    CJ 

^  6 
w 

w 
H 


MEN  WHO  BUILD  FINE   HOUSES 

been  different  from  that  of  any  other  American  citizen  ; 
and  it  has  no  tendency  to  become  different. 

This  fact  has  had  curious  and  significant  consequences. 
On  the  one  hand  the  rich  American  is,  for  better  or  worse, 
perhaps  the  most  conspicuous  figure  in  American  life. 
His  comings  and  goings,  his  plans  and  his  utterances  re- 
ceive a  large  share  of  newspaper  attention.  The  most 
notorious  of  his  class  cannot  attend  a  theatre  or  a  horse- 
race without  becoming  objects  of  a  disagreeable  public 
sensation.  They  are  literally  pursued  by  reporters  and 
photographers,  and  have  to  take  the  most  drastic  measures 
in  order  to  preserve  any  decent  privacy.  The  amount  of 
their  wealth,  their  habits,  and  their  plans  are  almost  as 
frequent  subjects  of  conversation  in  American  "  social  cir- 
cles "  as  are  the  peculiarities  of  the  royal  family  among 
English  middle-class  society. 

In  short,  while  often  remaining  in  taste  and  feelings 
modest  and  reticent  private  citizens,  they  are,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  public  characters ;  and  the  notoriety  to  which  they 
are  subjected,  while  not  as  irksome  as  that  of  a  European 
potentate,  is  in  its  ordinary  effects  exceedingly  disagreeable, 
just  because  this  notoriety  is,  as  it  were,  informal  and  un- 
official. 

Some  of  these  gentlemen,  as  we  have  said,  complain 
of  the  amount  of  attention  they  receive,  and  even  resent 
it,  while  others  appear  to  bear  up  under  it  extremely  well ; 

[25] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

but  no  matter  how  they  like  it  or  disHke  it,  they  are  utterly 
powerless  in  the  matter.  This  notoriety  is  so  manifestly 
inevitable  that  the  objector  is  very  much  like  that  common 
acquaintance  who  seeks  to  enjoy  the  bottle,  but  evade  the 
headache.  It  is,  moreover,  the  direct  issue  of  the  ambig- 
uity of  their  position.  The  ordinary  American  citizen  has 
all  the  chances  he  needs  of  seeing  his  presidents  and  gov- 
ernors, of  hearing  them  speak,  and  even  of  grasping  them 
by  the  hand — all  this  because  the  American  executive,  and 
to  a  less  extent  the  legislator,  must,  for  the  most  part,  play 
his  game  in  a  room  to  the  door  of  which  almost  every- 
body has  the  key. 

But  while  this  same  citizen  is  quite  as  much  interested 
in  the  industrial  as  he  is  in  the  political  leaders  of  his 
country,  he  has  by  no  means  the  same  opportunities  of 
personally  "sizing  up"  these  captains  of  industry.  Their 
operations  are  carried  on  behind  doors  which  are  triple- 
locked,  and  which,  generally  speaking,  are  not  opened 
until  the  laws  are  made,  executed,  and  expounded.  Under 
the  circumstances  they  naturally  appear  as  little  as  possible 
in  general  society,  and  associate  almost  exclusively  with 
other  men  of  their  own  set.  Hence,  in  order  to  feed  his 
very  legitimate  interest  in  these  people,  whose  operations 
so  vitally  affect  the  cost  of  his  beef,  his  oil,  his  tobacco, 
and  his  sugar,  and  whose  fortune  appears  to  bring  with  it 

the  chance  of  obtaining  everything  wanted  by  the  person 

[26]       ■ 


2;  -- 

W     O 

w 
X 

H 


^S-V. 


MEN  WHO  BUILD  FINE   HOUSES 

who  does  not  own  it,  the  good  American  citizen  naturally 
falls  back  upon  newspaper  and  social  gossip.  The  mys- 
terious nature  of  their  operations  enhances  the  value  and 
interest  of  their  personalities  in  general  conversation,  and 
consequently  the  social  position  which  they  occupy  is  not 
only  unstable  but  ambiguous. 

At  an  earlier  stage  of  civilization  deeds  of  correspond- 
ing moment  and  effect  would  have  converted  their  perpe- 
trators into  some  kind  of  an  aristocracy.  There  are  peo- 
ple who  believe,  or  who  profess  to  believe,  that  a  similar 
result  will  eventually  develop  in  this  country.  Mr.  W. 
J.  Ghent,  for  instance,  in  his  ingenious  book  entitled 
"  Our  Benevolent  Feudalism,"  argues  at  length  that  the 
American  millionaires  are  developing  into  a  baronial  caste, 
which  is  gradually  organizing  American  life  on  a  feudal 
plan,  and  which  will  differ  from  a  feudal  aristocracy  only 
because  it  will  be  benevolently  disposed  toward  its  re- 
tainers. 

But  if  Mr.  Ghent  has  convinced  himself  upon  this 
point,  he  certainly  has  failed  to  convince  very  many  other 
people.  Most  of  us  cherish  a  plausible  belief  that  the 
democratic  institutions  and  spirit  of  our  country  have  be- 
come part  of  its  life-blood ;  and  that  the  social  organiza- 
tion suggested  above  could  be  consummated  only  after  a 
revolutionary  struggle,  which  would  ruin  both  the  suppos- 
ititious barons  and  their  retainers.      However,  there  is  not 

[31] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

the  slightest  indication  that  the  American  industrial  leader 
has  any  such  political  ambition.  His  peculiar  position  at 
the  present  time  cannot  be  understood  unless  it  is  kept 
constantly  in  mind  that,  whatever  the  issue  of  his  activity, 
his  purposes  are  special  and  personal ;  and  the  ambiguity 
and  instability  of  his  position  is  due  to  this  combination 
of  special  and  personal  ambitions,  with  results  that  are  of 
the  utmost  national  and  public  importance. 

As  we  have  already  intimated,  the  semi-private  and 
semi-public  standing  of  the  American  captains  of  industry 
is  expressed  in  their  characteristic  dwellings.  Since  they  are 
practical  men,  their  residences  are,  of  course,  built  first  of 
all  to  be  inhabited.  The  best  mechanical  ingenuity  to  be 
found  in  the  country  is  employed  in  making  them  me- 
chanically complete — in  supplying  them  with  every  "  im- 
provement "  which  will  add  to  the  owner's  comfort  and 
convenience.  But  while  they  are  built  to  be  inhabited, 
they  are  built  almost  quite  as  much  to  be  admired.  These 
houses  have  about  them  a  species  of  conscious  publicity ; 
they  have  been  put  together  and  adorned  in  order  to  make 
a  brave  show — as  if  their  owners  were  very  well  aware 
that  people  were  watching  them ;  and  it  is  characteristic  of 
these  owners  that  they  want  the  exhibition  to  be  not  only 
brave,  but  genuinely  admirable.  They  know  that  in  order 
to  get  a  genuinely  admirable  building  they  have  to  employ 
the  best  architects — -just  as,  when   they  want  to  learn  the 

[32] 


MEN  WHO  BUILD  FINE  HOUSES 

value  of  a  mine  or  a  railroad,  they  employ  the  best  experts. 
Thus  it  is  that  the  best  American  designers  get  their 
chance,  and  thus  it  is  that  the  best  American  residences 
express  both  the  highest  contemporary  aesthetic  standards 
and  at  the  same  time  the  instincts  and  pleasures  of  their 
owners. 

The  fact  that  the  sort  of  houses  which  the  best 
American  architects  like  to  design  do  not  differ  from  the 
houses  in  which  the  rich  Americans  like  to  live,  can  be 
readily  explained.  There  has  been  much  talk  in  this 
country  about  native  styles  of  architecture  and  native 
forms  of  art ;  but  it  has  rarely  happened  that  this  talk  has 
issued  from  the  artists  themselves.  The  truth  is  that  in 
all  intellectual  and  aesthetic  matters,  Americans  are  ex- 
tremely conservative.  While  they  undeniably  possess  the 
instinct  to  be  effective  as  well  as  efficient ;  they  want  to 
be  effective  in  an  entirely  safe  way  ;  they  want  to  avoid 
being  crude  and  ridiculous. 

The  aesthetic  conservatism  of  the  American  designer 
consequently  harmonizes  well  with  the  conservatism  of 
the  American  business  man — in  all  matters  outside  of 
business;  and  the  consequence  is  that  the  "stunning" 
effects  that  appeal  to  the  artistic  sensibilities  of  the  de- 
signer appeal  just  as  much  to  the  personal  and  social  sen- 
sibilities of  the  owner  and  the  inhabitor.  It  is  easy  and 
obvious   to  say  that  the   complete   product   is  not   in   any 

[35] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

genuine  sense  a  domestic  style,  and  that  there  is  a  manifest 
incongruity  between  the  lives  of  these  men  and  their 
dwellings.  All  of  which  is  true  enough  ;  but  it  is  not  the 
aspect  of  the  truth  on  which  it  is  helpful  at  the  present 
time  to  dwell.  A  style  of  dwelling-house  is  the  ripe  prod- 
uct of  a  complete  and  definite  social  growth,  whereas  in 
our  own  country  social  forms  remain  undeveloped  and 
ambiguous. 

The  whole  movement  is  in  an  extremely  experimental 
stage ;  and  while  it  remains  experimental,  the  round,  full, 
speaking  congruities  of  a  complete  form  are  not  to  be 
expected.  Be  it  sufficient  to  note  that  there  is  some 
propriety  between  the  generous  habits  of  mind  of  the 
men  who  live  in  these  houses,  their  love  of  splendor  and 
distinction,  and  the  peculiar  character  of  the  houses 
themselves. 


[36] 


THE    COLONIAL    RESIDENCE 


CHAPTER    II 


Ci^e  Colonfal  Mt^it^mtt 

E  have  said  that  the  greater  American 
residence  of  to-day  had  predecessors  in 
the  architectural  history  of  the  country, 
but  hardly  any  precursors.  It  is  not 
the  outgrowth  of  a  native  style  of  do- 
mestic building.  It  has  not  been  developed  by  a  process 
of  long  and  edifying  local  experimentation.  It  is,  on 
the  contrary,  the  product  of  specifically  modern  economic 
conditions  and  aesthetic  standards.  American  life  changes 
rapidly  in  all  its  departments,  but  in  none  of  them  does  it 
change  more  rapidly  than  in  the  character  of  its  building. 
Houses  are  built,  destroyed,  and  rebuilt  with  a  celerity 
for  which  there  has  been  no  parallel  in  Europe,  It  fre- 
quently happened  on  the  chief  streets  of  New  York  that 
four  or  five  different  buildings  succeeded  each  other  during 
the  course  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Furthermore,  archi- 
tectural fashions  are  altered  even  more  quickly  than  are  the 
buildings  which  they  clothe,  and    one  "  revival  "  succeeds 

[41] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

another  with  so  much  assiduity  that  the  hasty  observer  gets 
an  impression  of  a  confusion  of  senseless  imitation. 

Yet  essentially  modern  as  these  greater  American  resi- 
dences are,  their  importance  and  significance  can  be  under- 
stood only  in  the  light  of  the  historical  development  of 
American  manners,  social  and  economic  forms,  and  do- 
mestic architecture.  In  the  making  of  them,  both  their 
designers  and  owners  have  had  at  the  top  of  their  minds 
certain  magnificent  European  models,  the  like  of  which 
was  never  seen  in  this  country  ;  but  this  very  dearth  of 
native  American  styles,  after  four  generations  of  national 
life,  this  seeking  after  "  stunning  "  but  exotic  effects,  itself 
requires  a  good  deal  of  explanation.  Why  has  our  domes- 
tic architecture  been  so  completely  subject  to  temporary 
fashions  ?  Why  is  it  that  one  form  has  not  succeeded 
another  in  something  like  an  orderly  and  continuous 
fashion  ?  Why  was  it  that  the  instructed  architect  of  to- 
day, when  he  came  to  design  the  greater  American  resi- 
dence, was  forced  to  cut  away  from  what  his  predecessors 
had  been  doing,  and  seek  new  European  models  both  for 
the  style  and  spirit  of  his  buildings  ?  Unless  questions  of 
this  kind  are  fully  and  correctly  answered,  the  whole  mean- 
ing and  promise  of  the  greater  residences  of  to-day  will 
be  misunderstood,  and  they  cannot  be  properly  answered 
without  a  review  of  previous  types  of  American  residences, 
and  the  conditions  which  made  them  what  they  were. 

[42] 


THE  COLONIAL  RESIDENCE 

From  the  very  beginning  styles  succeeded  each  other 
in  this  country  as  rapidly  as  buildings.  The  earliest  resi- 
dences were,  of  course,  log-cabins,  and  considering  the 
absence  of  saw-mills,  and  the  economy  of  this  class  of 
building,  it  might  be  surmised  that  these  log-cabins  would 
be  developed  into  some  local  and  desirable  variety  of  log- 
dwelling — as  has  been  the  case  in  Scandinavia  and  Switzer- 
land. But  no  !  From  the  very  beginning,  Americans  with 
the  talk  of  a  new  America  on  their  lips  have  been  in- 
stinctively seeking  to  build  up  a  new  Europe  or  for  a  time 
a  new  England.  Unless  the  persistence  and  in  a  sense  the 
legitimacy  of  this  instinct  be  granted,  the  history  of  this 
country  in  ideas  and  aesthetic  forms  cannot  be  at  all  under- 
stood. The  new  America,  which  the  colonists  sought, 
was  a  place  in  which  there  was  to  be  more  room  for  eco- 
-^ ;  nomic  growth,  and  more  freedom  for  social  and  religious 
ideas.  In  these  respects  the  new  country  was  from  a  very 
early  period  genuinely  original ;  but  its  power  of  being 
original  was  thereby  exhausted.  In  all  ideas  that  were 
not  of  a  practical  importance,  particularly  in  all  aesthetic 
forms,  the  colonists  willingly  fell  back  upon  European 
precedents  ;  and  this  persistent  colonialism  was  very  much 
assisted  by  the  constant  and  increasing  immigration  from 
the  other  side.  These  immigrants  were  frequently  men 
of  property,  who  could  afford  to  build  for  themselves  and 
their  families  substantial  dwellings,  and  they  naturally  built 

[47] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

a  modification  of  the  kind  of  dwellings  to  which  they 
were  accustomed  in  the  old  country.  Thus  it  was  that  in 
erecting  new  and  better  types  of  building  there  has  been  no 
attempt  to  improve  local  predecessors.  The  colonists 
simply  turned  their  eyes  abroad,  and  borrowed  something 
I  which  seemed  better,  because  it  was  guaranteed  by  familiar 
European  practice. 

For  the  purpose  of  the  present  review,  we  have  no 
interest  in  tracing  in  detail  the  history  of  colonial  build- 
ing. We  are  dealing  here,  not  with  American  domestic 
architecture  as  such,  but  only  with  the  greater  domestic 
architecture — with  the  dwellings  that  had  some  pretense  to 
size,  splendor,  and  distinction,  and  whose  owners  were 
people  of  wealth  and  social  standing.  Such  buildings  did 
not  come  into  existence  in  any  considerable  numbers 
until  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  By  that  time 
there  were  numbers  of  families  in  all  the  older  colonies 
whose  wealth  and  position  was  such  that  they  needed 
comparatively  spacious  and  imposing  habitations.  The 
source  of  this  wealth  and  the  character  of  this  position 
varied  widely  in  the  different  colonies  ;  but  their  posses- 
sors had  certain  common  characteristics,  which  issued  in 
buildings  conforming  in  some  respects  to  a  common  type. 
For  one  thing,  no  matter  what  the  origin  of  the  colonies, 
they  had  by  that  time  become  thoroughly  English.  Al- 
bany   was,  perhaps,   the  only  town   between   Canada  and 

[48] 


THE  COLONIAL  RESIDENCE 

the  Floridas  which  had  anything  but  an  EngUsh  appear- 
ance. New  York  had  left  New  Amsterdam  far  behind. 
Being  English  in  feeling,  in  manners  and  ideas,  the  colo- 
nists naturally  went  to  England  exclusively  for  their  archi- 
tectural forms.  Of  course,  there  were  many  varieties 
of  domestic  building  in  England — among  which  the 
Jacobean  is  one  of  the  best  types  ever  wrought;  but  the 
colonists  showed  their  disposition  and  taste  by  the  type 
they  selected  to  imitate.  They  copied,  not  the  older 
and  more  interesting  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  buildings, 
but  the  contemporary  residence  of  the  well-to-do  London 
merchant ;  and  this  they  did,  because  it  was  contemporary 
and  because  they  were  much  more  familiar  with  London 
merchants  than  they  were  with  the  English  aristocracy. 

Aristocratic  and  exclusive  as  was  the  best  society  of 
the  colonies,  it  possessed  no  leisured  class.  The  well- 
to-do  New  Englanders,  the  social  leaders  of  the  colony, 
were  merchants.  The  well-to-do  Southerners  were 
not  men  who  lived  on  the  rent  of  leased  farms ;  they 
were  planters,  and  merchants  also,  who  shipped  their 
agricultural  products  to  the  English  markets  and  whose 
prosperity  depended  chiefly  on  their  own  exertions.  It 
is  customary  to  speak  of  the  "  Barons  of  the  Potomac 
and  the  Rappahannock";  but  manorial  and  even  feudal  as 
in  some  respects  those  estates  were,  their  possessors  were 
more  akin  to  the  London  bourgeois  than  they  were  to  the 

[53] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

English  lord.  There  has  never  been  a  class  of  men  in  this 
country  that  was  leisured,  wealthy,  and  highly  cultivated. 
The  Virginian  planter,  who  was  at  once  a  lawyer,  a  poli- 
tician, a  social  leader  of  the  county,  and  a  planter,  doubt- 
less came  nearer  to  the  English  aristocrat  than  any  other 
well-known  class  of  American ;  and  the  type  persisted  in 
the  South  until  the  time  of  the  Civil  War ;  but  it  was 
essentially  a  working  rather  than  a  leisured  class.  When 
these  planters  came  to  build  handsome  dwellings,  they 
copied,  as  did  the  New  England  merchants,  the  houses  of 
the  London  bourgeois;  and  this  was  partly  because  they 
were  themselves  at  bottom  men  of  business. 

The  origin  of  the  English  "  Georgian  "  style  of  resi- 
dence is  somewhat  obscure.  All  that  is  known  is  that 
with  the  revival  of  domestic  building,  which  took  place 
early  in  the  eighteenth  century,  these  brick  buildings  be- 
gan to  be  erected  in  very  considerable  numbers.  Two  of 
the  earliest  examples  of  the  style,  one  at  Chichester  and 
the  other  at  Wandsworth,  are  known  to  have  been  designed 
by  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  during  his  declining  years  ;  and 
while  it  is  possible  that  these  were  the  very  first  buildings 
to  be  designed  in  this  manner,  the  precise  chronology  of 
the  whole  movement  is  as  uncertain  as  its  precise  origin. 
Whatever  its  derivation,  it  rapidly  came  into  favor,  and 
since  a  large  number,  although  by  no  means  all,  of  the 
domestic  buildings  of  that  period  consisted  of  semi-subur- 

[54] 


THE  COLONIAL  RESIDENCE 

ban  houses  of  the  merchants,  who  were  beginning  to  be 
rich  and  influential,  the  great  majority  of  these  dwelHngs 
consisted,  not  of  country  mansions,  but  rather  of  detached 
or  semi-detached  but  very  substantial  suburban  villas. 

The  chief  characteristics  of  these  houses  are  summed 
up  by  Mr.  G.  A.  T.  Middleton,  in  a  paper  on  "  English 
Georgian  Architecture,"  published  by  the  Architectural 
Record,  in  the  following  words :  "  Built  in  almost  all  in- 
stances of  brick,  with  timber  enrichments,  such  as  cor- 
nices and  doorways,  painted  white  to  represent  stone,  the 
buildings  commonly  took  the  form  of  rectangular  cubes, 
somewhat  after  the  manner  of  the  Italian  palaces,  having 
deep  modillioned  cornices,  proportioned  to  the  total  height, 
and  with  either  a  steep  roof  or  a  parapet  above  the  roof 
frequently  having  a  flat  top.  The  window  openings  were 
large  and  absolutely  unornamented;  but  the  doorway,  cen- 
trally placed  in  the  front,  was  marked  in  some  way  with 
order,  pediment,  or  hood.  Dormers  of  a  plain  description 
were  common  in  many  instances,  hidden  behind  the  para- 
pet ;  and  it  is  usual  to  find  small  horizontal  string-courses, 
marking  the  division  of  the  front  into  stories."  Fre- 
quently the  houses  were  situated  some  fifty  feet  or  more 
from  the  street,  the  grounds  being  enclosed  by  a  brick 
wall,  and  entered  through  what  was  often  a  very  beautiful 
wrought-iron  gate.  These  gates,  which  were  frequently 
the  only  elegant,  purely  decorative  accessories  of  the  style, 

[57] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

and  which  contrasted  curiously  with  the  substantial  respect- 
ability of  the  houses,  gave  the  chief  touch  of  distinction 
to  the  Georgian  type  of  dwelling. 

This  Georgian  residence  naturally  took  very  different 
forms  in  the  different  colonies.  In  New  York,  Philadel- 
phia, Boston,  Salem,  and  Portsmouth,  the  wealthy  people 
were  merchants,  whose  requirements  were  not  so  very  dif- 
ferent from  the  English  merchant  whose  dwelling  they 
borrowed.  New  England  never  possessed  a  landed  gentry. 
Its  wealthy  people  have  always  lived  in  the  towns,  and 
made  their  money  in  commerce.  This  is  not  so  true  of 
New  York,  the  soil  of  which  is  richer,  and  whose  land 
was  early  parcelled  out  in  large  manorial  grants.  Each  of 
these  manors  at  one  time  possessed  a  house  of  some  pre- 
tension :  but  most  of  these  dwellings  were  of  wood  and  few 
have  survived.  The  manor-house  of  the  Van  Rensselaers 
of  Rensselaers  Wyck  was  the  most  considerable  of  these ; 
but  it  was  one  of  the  very  few  fine  houses  north  of  the 
line  of  Chesapeake  Bay,  the  owner  of  which  lived  on  the 
land.  When  we  reach  the  South,  however,  a  very  differ- 
ent condition  of  things  prevailed.  In  Maryland  and  Vir- 
ginia there  were  many  very  large  and  bountiful  country 
estates,  the  owners  of  which  built  handsome  residences,  and 
whose  requirements  in  building  them  were  entirely  differ- 
ent from  those  of  a  city  merchant. 

In  describing  the  estates  of  the  Virginia   planters   as 

[58] 


THE  COLONIAL  RESIDENCE 

"  manors,"  the  word  is  used  with  almost  its  full  meaning. 
A  manor  has  always  been  an  agricultural  estate,  which  is 
more  or  less  completely  self-supporting — an  estate  which 
raises  almost  everything  it  consumes,  and  which  neither 
sells  nor  buys  to  any  large  extent  in  outside  markets. 
Of  course  this  description  is  not  completely  true  of  the 
Virginian  and  Maryland  estates,  because  the  planter  derived 
a  certain  part  of  his  income  from  the  export  and  sales  of 
his  tobacco;  and  the  sale  of  this  commodity  gave  him  cash 
to  buy  many  objects  of  refinement  and  luxury,  which  he 
could  not  have  manufactured  on  his  own  estate.  Still,  to 
a  large  extent  these  Virginian  estates  did  conform  to  the 
historic  type  of  manor.  As  in  the  case  of  all  manors,  un- 
skilled labor  was  cheap  and  plentiful,  skilled  labor  was 
scarce — particularly  in  Virginia.  Of  all  kinds  of  produce 
there  was  an  abundance,  but  money  was  not  so  plentiful. 
Circumstances  encouraged  a  prodigal  and  lavish  manner  of 
living.  The  climate  was  pleasant  and  open  ;  the  soil  rich 
and  naturally  productive  ;  the  planter  himself  was  socially 
inclined  and  much  given  to  lavish  entertaining.  Jefferson 
eventually  ruined  himself,  because  of  the  open  house  he 
kept.  Washington  possessed  one  hundred  cows,  but  was 
sometimes  obliged  to  buy  butter.  All  this  was  as  differ- 
ent as  possible  from  the  frugality  and  simplicity  of  the 
colonial  New  Englander  ;  and  these  differences  found  full 
expression  in  the  houses  which  the  planters  built. 

[63] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

These  residences  were  generally  spacious,  rambling 
structures,  suitable  both  for  the  entertainment  of  a  large 
number  of  guests  and  the  accommodation  of  an  equally- 
large  number  of  servants.  Frequently  the  house  consisted 
of  a  square  central  building  two  stories  high,  very  sim- 
ply and  plainly  treated.  This  central  building  was  usually 
connected  with  two  wings,  which  were  generally  smaller 
in  scale  and  only  one  story  high.  The  wings  were  some- 
times used  for  the  accommodation  of  the  domestic  ser- 
vants, and  sometimes  for  guests ;  and  in  addition  to  them 
there  were  hard  by  many  smaller  frame  out-buildings, 
which  have  rarely  survived  the  vicissitudes  of  the  last 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years.  Whitehall  near  Annapolis, 
Homewood,  Monticello  and  Upper  and  Lower  Brandon 
all  conformed  to  this  type  more  or  less  completely.  In 
some  cases,  as  in  that  of  Shirley  and  of  several  of  the 
homesteads  in  Annapolis^  the  buildings  are  higher  and 
more  compact ;  but  for  the  most  part  they  are  long  and 
low — covering  a  good  deal  of  space,  and  thereby  dis- 
tinguished from  their  somewhat  contracted  English  pre- 
decessors. 

Just  as  in  the  exterior  of  the  house,  it  was  in  the  com- 
position and  treatment  of  the  wings  that  the  designers  of 
the  Southern  residences  made  their  most  distinctive  depar- 
ture from  the  English  type,  so  the  plan  of  the  house  also 
had  a  character  that  was  partly  dictated  by  local  condi- 

[64] 


New  York  City. 

STAIRCASE    IN    THE    RESIDENCE    OF   J.    PIERPONT    MORGAN. 


THE  COLONIAL  RESIDENCE 

tions.  In  the  early  colonial  years,  say  until  1650,  the 
"  hall  "  was  naturally  the  chief  room  of  a  residence;  and 
this  practise  has  had  a  considerable  influence  both  upon  the 
later  colonial  plan,  and  even  upon  the  laying  out  of  mod- 
ern American  dwellings.  In  the  beginning  this  hall  was 
almost  the  whole  house — except  for  the  kitchen  and  bed- 
rooms. It  was  the  living-room,  in  which  the  big  fire- 
place was  situated,  the  dining-room,  and  frequently  even 
the  room  in  which  a  guest  was  necessarily  lodged.  The 
common  life  of  the  family  centered  about  this  room,  and 
whatever  the  owner  could  provide  in  the  way  of  good 
furniture  and  fine  trappings  was  arranged  therein.  Later 
when  the  colonists  could  afl^ord  to  build  more  rooms,  the 
hall  lost  its  eminence  as  the  one  public  assembly-room  of 
the  house  ;  but  it  always  remained  a  prominent  division 
of  the  plan,  and  occasionally  even  it  was  still  treated  as  a 
large  assembly  and  living  room.  Sometimes  it  ran  clear 
through  the  building  and  sometimes  it  did  not;  but  in 
later  Colonial  days  its  dominating  feature  was  the  spacious 
and  handsome  stairway  leading  to  the  second  story.  Be- 
sides the  hall  this  lower  floor  generally  contained  four 
rooms,  which  were  of  good  size  and  which  tended  to  be 
square.  Three  of  these  rooms  Were  always  the  parlor,  sit- 
ting-room, and  dining-room  ;  and  the  fourth  was  some- 
times another  parlor,  sometimes  a  reception-room,  and 
sometimes  a  breakfast  or  morning  room.     The  wings  were 

[67] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

used  for  various  purposes.  For  the  most  part,  one  of  them 
was  given  over  to  the  kitchen  and  laundry  ;  and  on  this 
side  the  connecting  building  would  be  used  for  a  pantry. 
The  wing  on  the  other  side  was  devoted  sometimes  to  an 
office  and  library  and  sometimes  to  guest-rooms. 

The  dwelling  of  the  city  merchant,  whether  in  Balti- 
more or  Portsmouth,  differed  from  the  one  above  described 
chiefly  in  being  more  compact.  The  square  central  struc- 
ture became,  almost  universally,  three  stories  high,  and  the 
wings  and  outbuildings  were  cut  off.  Sometimes  this 
third  story  obtained  light  and  air  through  dormer-win- 
dows, which  broke  through  a  high-pitched  roof;  some- 
times a  lower  third  story  was  added,  and  a  roof  gently 
sloping  off  on  all  four  sides  and  culminating  in  a  square 
level  place  outlined  by  a  balustrade,  finished  off  the  whole 
structure.  The  Carroll  House  in  Annapolis  could  boast 
of  four  stories,  but  this  was  an  exception — appropriate  to 
the  peculiar  position  of  the  family  that  occupied  it.  In 
the  North,  of  course,  the  third  story  was  used  chiefly 
in  order  to  supply  lodging  for  domestic  servants,  who 
from  that  day  until  this  have  been  more  difficult  to  ob- 
tain and  more  expensive  to  maintain  there  than  in  the 
South. 

The  exterior  of  these  houses  was  exceedingly  simple 
and  plain.  Very  often  there  were  no  projections  at  all, 
the  porches  and  verandas  having  been  added  subsequently 

[68] 


THE  COLONIAL  RESIDENCE 

by  descendants,  who  were  seeking  a  natural  protection 
against  the  sun.  The  architectural  effect  which  these  homes 
produce  is  obtained  almost  entirely  by  the  proportion  of  the 
masses  and  the  distribution  of  the  openings.  Occasionally 
the  central  division  of  the  house  is  emphasized  by  a  pro- 
jection on  the  face  of  the  wall  and  by  a  gable  above  the 
cornice  line,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Scott  House  in  Annapo- 
lis. More  frequently  a  plain  string-course  of  brick  out- 
lines the  stories,  and  emphasizes  effectually  the  horizontal 
dimension  of  the  house.  Of  exterior  ornament  there  was 
little ;  and  that  little  generally  consisted  of  a  more  or  less 
elaborate  doorway,  treated  as  a  rule  with  a  pair  of  well- 
proportioned  columns  and  a  pediment.  In  some  few  cases, 
particularly  in  the  North,  distinction  was  given  to  the  de- 
sign by  a  more  elaborate  handling  of  the  window  above 
the  entrance — the  window  which  served  the  hall  on  the 
second  floor.  A  few  houses  survive  in  which  the  windows 
are  arched  ;  but  as  a  rule  the  openings  were  square  and 
were  capped  by  a  course  of  upright  brick. 

In  all  these  dispositions  a  certain  necessary  economy  is 
plainly  visible — not  so  much  of  money  as  of  skilled  labor ; 
and  the  simplicity  of  the  exterior  of  the  colonial  residences 
is  largely  due  to  the  necessity  their  constructors  were  under 
of  making  the  most  of  meager  resources.  The  same  neces- 
sity for  economy  did  not  apply  to  the  interiors,  which 
contained  a  profusion  of  elaborate   woodwork.     The  ex- 

[71] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

planation  doubtless  is,  so  it  has  been  surmised,  that  in  the 
scarcity  of  handicraftsmen,  the  mere  bricklaying  was  all 
that  could  be  done  on  the  spot,  while  elaborate  woodwork 
could  be  imported  from  England,  and  only  put  in  place 
by  native  workmen.  But  just  what  part  of  the  materials 
and  contents  of  these  houses  was  imported  and  just  what 
part  was  manufactured  in  this  country  is  a  matter  which 
historical  research  has  not  been  able  definitely  to  ascertain. 
As  early  as  1696  native  brick  was  used  in  the  colonies; 
but  in  1770,  when  Jefferson  built  Monticello,  the  bricks 
for  his  mansion  were  burnt  upon  his  own  estate — which, 
perhaps,  may  be  regarded  as  proof  that  even  at  that  late 
period  bricks  were  not  being  regularly  manufactured  in 
Virginia. 

In  some  cases  the  bricks  may  have  been  imported ; 
and  as  stone-cutters  were  more  scarce  than  bricklayers, 
stonework  in  the  few  houses  in  which  it  was  used  was, 
perhaps,  also  imported.  It  is  significant  that  the  original 
owner  of  Westover,  who  did  things  more  extravagantly 
than  his  neighbors,  went  so  far  as  to  fetch  over  urns  of 
stone,  .hewn  in  England,  forged-iron  gates,  and  even,  in 
anticipation  of  a  modern  practise,  a  genuine  Italian  stone 
mantelpiece.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  agreed  that  much 
of  the  woodwork  was  done  upon  the  spot,  because  "  old 
works  of  architecture  are  now  extant  that  were  in  use  in 
the  middle  of  the  last  century,  from  whose  pages  it  is  very 

[72] 


THE  COLONIAL  RESIDENCE 

evident   that   some   of  the   designs    for    finish    of  certain 
houses  were  taken." 

Whatever  the  practise  in  the  beginning,  and  whatever 
proportion  of  the  old  woodwork  was  imported,  it  may  be 
taken  for  certain  that  the  proportion  thereof  wrought  in 
the  colonies  gradually  increased,  and  that  the  peculiar  dis- 
tinction of  our  colonial  interiors  was  due  chiefly  to  the 
excellent  traditions  and  reverent  spirit  of  the  colonial 
woodworker.  Perhaps  it  is  not  sufficiently  recognized 
how  closely  American  architectural  practise  of  colonial 
times  approximated  the  forms  used  at  the  same  time  in 
England.  Similarity  is  generally  admitted ;  but  this  simi- 
larity bordered  upon  actual  identity.  The  great  source  of 
diflference  consisted  in  the  material  chiefly  used  in  the  col- 
onies— to  the  fact  that  the  carpenter  instead  of  the  mason 
gave  expression  in  the  new  country  to  the  traditions  of  the 
old.  How  reverently  the  early  builders  stuck  to  their 
models,  how  insular  and  English  they  remained,  even  when 
confronted  by  the  novel  conditions  of  a  new  continent,  is 
indicated  by  the  fact  already  mentioned,  that  the  veranda, 
an  obvious  and  indispensable  device  for  mitigating  the 
semi-tropical  heat  of  an  American  summer,  was  not  intro- 
duced until  the  colonial  period  was  nearing  its  end.  Even 
the  use  of  brick  for  the  larger  houses,  in  a  country  in 
which  timber  could  be  had  for  the  asking,  while  it  may 
attest  an  appreciation  of  the  more  monumental  and  endur- 

[75] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

ing  character  of  that  material,  shows,  also,  at  what  cost 
the  colonist  insisted  on  reproducing  the  rectangular,  sober, 
dignified  mansions  of  Georgian  England. 

Much  as  the  colonist  might  desire,  however,  to  repro- 
duce literally,  the  force  of  circumstances  was  in  one  re- 
spect too  strong  for  him  ;  he  could  not  wholly  escape 
from  the  fact  that  wood  was  his  natural,  almost  his  inevi- 
table material.  It  was,  as  we  have  said,  the  carpenters  and 
woodworkers  who  gave  the  decorative  accessories  of  these 
colonial  houses  their  chief  distinction.  Many  of  the  most 
serviceable  and  valuable  materials,  which  add  richness, 
variety,  and  an  admirable  structural  propriety  to  the  greater 
European  domestic  interiors,  were  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
colonial  builder.  He  had  nothing  except  plaster,  wood, 
and  paper ;  and  out  of  these  elements  he  was  obliged  to 
make  his  interiors.  Since  good  plasterers  were  scarce, 
since  all  varieties  of  wood  were  plentiful  and  cheap,  and 
since  carpenters  were  probably  the  most  numerous  of  the 
handicraftsmen,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  woodwork  of 
the  colonial  builder  remains  his  chief  title  to  recognition. 

Hence  it  is  that  our  colonial  architecture  has  well 
been  defined  as  "  the  carpenter's  interpretation  of  the 
Renaissance."  This  is,  indeed,  its  one  unique  characteris- 
tic. In  no  other  country  was  the  carpenter  permitted  a 
rendering  of  the  great  classic  revival.  Even  in  South 
Africa,  where  there  is  an  "old   colonial  "  style,  the  remi- 

[76] 


THE  COLONIAL  RESIDENCE 

niscences  which  the  expatriated  Hollanders  preserved  of 
the  Renaissance  are  formulated  chiefly  in  stucco  and  plas- 
ter. This  predominance  of  the  carpenter  rather  than  the 
mason,  arising  immediately  from  the  great  variety  and  abun- 
dance of  native  American  woods,  is  from  the  vStart  one  of 
the  most  important  facts  connected  with  American  archi- 
tecture ;  and  to  the  present  day  it  has  not  lost  its  impor- 
tance. In  structure  and  ornament  the  American  house 
has  been  made  largely,  too  largely,  of  wood.  In  colonial 
times,  while  a  good  tradition  prevailed,  the  use  made  of 
the  material  was  acceptable  ;  but  later  when  the  craftsman 
had  deteriorated,  the  excessive  importance  granted  to  a 
building  material  that  is  flexible,  cheap,  and  tempts  the 
unwary  into  multiplying  members  and  elaborating  detail, 
was  partly  responsible  for  some  of  the  most  grotesque 
wooden  malformations  which  the  world  has  ever  seen. 
Moreover,  our  woodwork,  founded  as  it  was  upon  forms 
that  pertained  properly  to  the  mason's  materials,  has  always 
betrayed  a  leaning  toward  a  decadent  principle,  which  has 
not  been  without  a  generally  corrupting  eflfect  upon 
American  practise. 

Upon  the  character  of  this  colonial  wood  and  plaster 
work  it  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  in  detail.  Whether  the 
former  was  imported  or  wrought  in  this  country,  it  did  not 
pretend  to  be  more  than  a  faithful  copy  of  the  current  Eng- 
lish designs  ;  but  the  necessary  readjustments  as  to  scale  and 

[8i] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

position  were  usually  made  with  rare  discretion ;  and  it  is 
this  discretion,  overlaying  English  practise,  that  constitutes 
the  only  claim  of  the  American  mechanic  to  artistic  origi- 
nality. The  classical  forms  and  motives  were  used  without 
any  sense  of  their  structural  function,  but  simply  for  their 
decorative  value  ;  but  they  were  adapted  with  a  very  admi- 
rable feeling  for  their  proper  proportions  and  uses.  As  says 
Mr.  A.  J.  Bloor  in  his  essay  on  "  American  Domestic  Archi- 
tecture "  :  "  The  cutting  up  of  the  interiors  into  numerous 
rooms  gave  a  much  larger  field  for  the  employment  of 
moldings,  as  applied  to  the  finish  of  doors,  windows, 
chimneys,  paneling,  and  the  like.  The  mantelpieces  were 
generally  of  good,  though  perhaps  rather  attenuated  design 
and  frequently  carved  with  delicacy  and  skill.  Wains- 
coting was  frequently  added,  sometimes  treated  as  a  dado — 
that  is,  as  a  covering  to  only  the  lower  part  of  the  walls — 
and  sometimes  carried  up  from  floor  to  ceiling ;  but 
almost  always  proportioned,  molded,  paneled,  and  oc- 
casionally carved,  with  satisfactory  effect.  The  paneling 
in  particular  was  apt  to  be  very  good,  the  mantelpieces  and 
other  special  features  being  often  surmounted  by  a  single 
panel  made  out  of  one  piece  of  wood  of  very  large  di- 
mensions. The  staircases,  too,  with  their  landings  and 
their  returns,  their  twisted  newel-posts,  and  prim  balusters, 
are,  many  of  them,  very  quaint  and  picturesque." 

It  should  be  added  that  this  woodwork  was  all  painted 

[82] 


THE  COLONIAL  RESIDENCE 

white — except  in  the  case  of  the  doors,  which,  in  the 
more  expensive  houses,  were  made  of  mahogany,  and 
formed  an  effective  contrast  to  the  prevailing  tone  of  the 
room.  The  furniture  was,  of  course,  always  of  mahogany 
or  of  some  other  dark  wood,  and  the  designs  harmonized 
plea-santly  with  the  prevailing  character  of  the  woodwork. 
The  detail  throughout  was  most  carefully  and  elaborately 
worked.  Often  it  is  somewhat  stiff  and  lifeless ;  but  it  is 
almost  always  moderate  and  correct ;  and  occasionally  it  is 
of  an  exquisite  and  delicate  simplicity. 

Such,  in  brief,  was  the  kind  of  dwelling  which  our 
colonial  ancestors  built ;  and  which  is  the  one  type  of 
building  in  our  architectural  history  which  bears  the 
marks  of  a  definite  style.  It  is  strongly  distinguished 
from  every  subsequent  style  of  residence,  because  it  was 
used  in  the  colonies  for  something  over  a  century,  and  be- 
cause, throughout  all  of  that  time,  it  prevailed  absolutely. 
The  fact  that  during  the  whole  of  the  eighteenth  century 
there  was  only  one  style  in  which  a  rich  American  could 
build  a  house,  prevented  the  waste  and  desolation  which 
characterized  the  necessary  and  incessant  experimentation 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  colonial  social  forms  and 
ideas  were  comparatively  stable.  While  there  was  no  real 
aristocracy,  there  was  a  privileged  class,  particularly  in  the 
South,  and  less  fortunate  people  accepted  its  leadership 
with  something  of  the  instinctive  loyalty  of  the  English- 

[85] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

man.  These  social  leaders  wanted  to  live  in  dwellings 
which  expressed  not  merely  their  comparative  wealth  but 
their  social  distinction.  They  observed  a  certain  form  in 
their  lives ;  they  demanded  a  certain  form  in  their  domes- 
tic surroundings.  They  derived  that  form  from  the 
dwellings  of  the  class  of  Englishmen  with  which  they 
were  most  familiar  ;  and  while  it  was  a  borrowed  and 
somewhat  decadent  form,  it  was  genuine,  because  it  was 
simply  and  faithfully  accepted. 

It  should  be  added  that  these  were  really  very  modest 
dwellings — comparable  in  size  and  cost  to  the  manor- 
house  of  a  second-rate  English  country  squire.  Their 
owners  were  nothing  more  than  ordinarily  well-to-do 
men,  who  had  enough  money  to  live  in  a  pleasant  and 
generous  manner,  but  who  very  distinctly  could  not  afford 
any  considerable  extravagances.  Consequently,  while  they 
built  substantially  they  were  also  obliged  to  build  eco- 
nomically. One  of  these  old  brick  houses  frequently  took 
many  years  to  erect,  and  required  on  the  part  of  the 
owner  and  builder  the  utmost  patience,  as  well  as  the  ut- 
most ingenuity  in  overcoming  obstacles.  They  did  not 
have  the  benefit  of  much  expert  assistance.  There  were 
practically  no  professional  architects  in  the  colonies  until 
the  very  end  of  the  colonial  period ;  and  they  were 
engaged  almost  exclusively  in  the  design  of  public  build- 
ings.    The  only  assistance  upon  which  a  man  who  wanted 

[86] 


THE   COLONIAL  RESIDENCE 

to  build  could  rely  was  that  of  trained  mechanics,  who 
were  frequently  imported  for  the  purpose,  and  who  natu- 
rally built  according  to  rule.  That  under  so  many  disad- 
vantageous conditions  the  result  was  often  so  admirable,  is 
most  excellent  testimony  to  the  training  of  the  eighteenth- 
century  handicraftsmen.  They  had  been  educated  in  a 
good  school ;  they  knew  how  to  do  certain  things  only, 
but  everything  they  did  was  well  done  ;  and  if  their  tradi- 
tion and  method  of  work  had  only  survived  for  two  or 
three  generations,  we  Americans  would  have  been  spared  a 
convention  of  ugliness — particularly  in  woodwork — which 
persists  among  American  carpenters  to  the  present  day. 

Thomas  Jefferson,  whc  was  almost  the  only  American 
statesman  who  had  taken  any  interest  in  building,  has  left 
behind  him  his  opinion  of  contemporary  architectural 
conditions  in  the  statement  that  "  the  genius  of  architec- 
ture seems  to  have  shed  his  maledictions  over  the  land  "  ; 
while  a  popular  historian  of  the  United  States  has  dared 
to  assert  that  there  did  not  exist  in  the  country  "in  1874 
a  single  piece  of  architecture  which,  when  tried  even  by 
the  standard  of  that  day,  can  be  called  respectable.  Not 
a  church,  not  a  public  building,  not  a  house,  has  been 
preserved  to  us  that  is  not  a  deformity." 

As  against  such  adverse  judgments  as  these,  there  has 
recently  been  a  very  strong  reaction,  until  at  the  present 
time  there  is  a  tendency,  perhaps,  to  overvalue  the  colonial 

[91] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

residence  as  an  architectural  model.  The  fact  that  it  was 
the  only  style  ever  adopted  with  a  fair  degree  of  success  in 
this  country  should  not  blind  architects  to  its  limitations, 
both  as  to  exterior  and  interior.  At  the  time  it  prevailed 
it  was  admirable,  because  it  was  safe;  but  in  view  of  the 
immensely  richer  materials  and  larger  opportunities  which 
architects  of  the  present  time  have  at  their  disposal,  they 
cannot  afford  to  accept  the  colonial  tradition  too  seriously. 
Both  as  regards  outside  and  in,  the  excellence  of  the 
colonial  dwellings  depended  on  their  decorous  and  unob- 
trusive character.  They  aimed  studiously  at  understatement. 
Their  owners  were  people  of  taste,  in  whom  the  ideal  of 
respectability  was  vSti)l  fortunately  allied  with  some  notion 
of  good  form,  and  who  would  not  for  the  world  do  any- 
thing to  violate  the  prevalent  proprieties.  But  it  lacked 
structural  and  functional  character ;  its  range  of  ex- 
pression was  extremely  limited.  It  is  associated  somehow 
with  a  tea-table  respectability,  an  old-maidenly  reserve 
and  propriety  ;  it  is  quaint  and  stiff  and  charming  ;  but  it 
lacks  the  richer  tone,  the  deeper  harmonies,  the  grander 
style  of  some  French  and  Italian  models.  It  remains, 
nevertheless,  one  of  the  best  sources  from  which  to  derive 
the  forms  of  a  modest  and  inexpensive  modern  dwelling, 
for  its  designs  are  simple,  its  materials  cheap,  and  the 
character  of  its  expression  adapted  to  the  houses  of  quiet 
people  of  good  taste,  and  without  much  originality. 

[92] 


THE    MEANING    OF    THE 
TRANSITIONAL    DWELLING 


CHAPTER  III 

Cl^e  jEeaning  of  tl^e  Cranjsitional  j^toelUng 

HE  Colonial  Period  of  American  archi- 
tecture did  not  end  with  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  or  the  signature  of  the 
Treaty  of  Paris.  It  persisted,  or  more 
correctly,  it  lingered,  for  the  space  of  a 
generation  after  the  definite  beginning  of  American  polit- 
ical independence.  The  Revolutionary  War  had  wrought 
so  many  changes,  and  had  impaired  or  destroyed  so  many 
fortunes,  that  there  was  not  erected  during  these  years  any 
very  considerable  number  of  expensive  residences;  but  in 
those  that  were  erected  the  colonial  forms  were  still  used. 
Several  of  the  most  beautiful  old  dwellings  in  the  Carolinas 
date  from  the  first  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century;  and 
while  in  these  dwellings  there  is  evidence  of  a  greater  free- 
dom of  handling,  of  a  less  rigid  loyalty  to  precedent,  the 
innovations  were  of  no  particular  importance.  Just  as 
American  politics  remained  fundamentally  colonial  during 
the  first  five  or  six  administrations,  and  just  as  the  country 
for  the  first  quarter  of  the  century  continued  without  ques- 

[97] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

tion  to  accept  the  leadership  of  the  group  of  Virginian 
statesmen,  so  architectural  forms  continued  somewhat  list- 
lessly in  the  colonial  tradition. 

The  finest  and  most  important  residence  erected  during 
these  years,  the  White  House  in  Washington,  was  the  repro- 
duction of  a  planter's  manor-house,  in  a  different  material 
and  on  a  somewhat  larger  scale;  and  it  was  fortunate,  in- 
deed, that  this  house  was  built  before  the  colonial  conven- 
tion had  vanished.  In  subsequent  years  as  much  as  possible 
was  done  to  pervert  and  vulgarize  its  distinctive  character; 
but  the  value  of  the  original  design  was  triumphantly 
affirmed,  when,  under  better  contemporary  influences,  it 
was  found  that  the  best  way  to  renovate  the  White  House 
was  in  large  measure  to  restore  it. 

However,  colonial  architecture  was  only  a  survival  and 
was  as  plainly  doomed  to  perish  as  were  the  privileges 
enjoyed  by  the  people  who  constructed  it.  Product  as  it 
was  of  restricted  economic  conditions,  of  an  aristocratic 
social  system,  and  of  an  innocently  and  loyally  imitative 
habit  of  mind,  it  could  not  withstand  the  impact  of  the  new 
and  somewhat  lawless  forces  which  were  coming  to  prevail 
in  American  society  and  politics. 

The  first  quarter  of  the  century  was  really  a  period  of 
reconstruction,  in  which  certain  new  national  habits  of  mind 
were  formed.  The  old  political  privileges  were  gradually 
but  irresistibly  cut  away;  politics  and  business  became  the 

[98] 


w 
o 
Is 

Q 

CO 

W 

Q 

w 


JO 


THE   TRANSITIONAL  DWELirfN©  •••^•^^'^^^•''*^ 

absorbing  occupation;  every  man  began  to  consider  himself 
as  good  as  his  neighbor;  any  claims  to  superiority  were 
fiercely  resented;  the  characteristic  American  became  a 
shrewd,  good-natured,  easy-mannered,  hustling  fellow,  who 
could  and  did  turn  his  hand  to  many  things.  He  had  abun- 
dant faith  in  the  future,  but  very  little  conscious  respect  for 
the  past.  He  prided  himself  particularly  upon  his  versa- 
tility, his  restless  energy,  his  good-fellowship,  and  his  hope- 
ful elasticity.  According  to  a  phrase  of  Mr.  Howells,  de- 
mocracy, which  is  a  faith  in  the  East,  became  the  life  of  the 
West.  The  democratic  society  and  state  had  been  born  and 
was  growing  and  bellowing  with  a  will.  | 

This  democratic  state  and  society  was  soon  the  subject  of 
interested  and  vivacious  comment  upon  the  part  of  Euro- 
pean and  particularly  of  English  observers.  They  com- 
plained particularly  of  the  want  of  distinction  in  American 
life,  of  our  rough,  crude  ways,  of  our  bad  manners,  and  of 
our  mercenary  preoccupations;  but  these  English  travelers, 
such  as  Captain  Basil  Hall  and  Mrs.  Trollope,  made  the 
mistake,  which  was  not  avoided  even  by  De  Tocqueville,  of 
charging  to  the  account  of  democracy  a  great  many  char- 
acteristics for  which  the  country's  economic  immaturity  was 
rather  responsible.  Had  the  territory  of  the  United  States 
been  confined  to  the  Atlantic  seaboard  it  is  obvious  that  the 
form  which  the  American  democracy  assumed  would  have 
been  entirely  dififerent. 

[lOl] 


''-' ^STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

The  United  States  of  the  "  Middle  Period "  was  the 
result  quite  as  much  of  pioneering  as  of  democratic  condi- 
tions; and  the  necessities  and  state  of  mind  of  the  pioneer 
had  almost  as  much  of  an  indirect  efifect  upon  the  Eastern 
States  as  it  had  a  direct  effect  upon  the  new  States  in  the 
West.  The  momentum,  the  restlessness,  the  economic  insta- 
bility, the  free  and  easy  manners,  the  hopeful  versatility, 
which  originated  on  the  border  reacted  upon  the  older  parts 
of  the  country  and  gave  the  dominant  and  characteristic  tone 
to  the  whole  body  of  American  civilization.  Its  strength 
consisted  in  its  flexibility,  its  elasticity,  and  its  energy — 
in  its  complete  fitness  to  the  needs  of  a  rapidly  growing 
country;  its  weakness  consisted  just  in  the  fact  that  was  so 
eminently  and  so  immediately  practical.  Under  the  influ- 
ence of  its  purely  practical  preoccupations  it  was  forced  to 
slur  over  many  secondary  interests  and  pursuits,  which  re- 
quired a  disinterested  frame  of  mind,  a  long  and  special 
training  or  a  somewhat  exclusive  attention,  and  among  the 
interests  thus  neglected  were  those  connected  with  art  and 
architecture. 

In  describing  and  criticizing  the  architecture  of  the 
transitional  period  it  is  easy  and  natural  to  drop  into  the 
use  of  strong  expletives.  Mr.  Montgomery  Schuyler,  in  his 
"  Studies  in  American  Architecture,"  declares  that  the  typical 
residence  of  this  time  was  the  "  most  vulgar  habitation  ever 
built  by  man  " ;  and  there  are  no  good  grounds  for  disputing 

[  I02  ] 


New   York  City.  Richard   M.    Hunt,    Architect. 

MOORISH     ROOM    IN    THE    MARQUAND    RESIDENCE. 


New  York  City.  Richard  M.  Hunt,  Architect 

HALL    OF    THE    MARQUAND    RESIDENCE. 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

the  superlative.  But  since  the  extremely  vulgar  habitations 
of  the  mid-century  have  a  very  definite  place  in  the  history 
of  American  residences,  and  since  they  illustrate  very  well 
some  of  the  prevailing  motives  of  American  architectural 
history,  they  must  be  approached  for  our  present  purpose  in 
a  somewhat  different  spirit. 

The  action  of  the  new  social  and  economic  forces  was, 
undoubtedly,  to  vulgarize  architectural  forms.  Good  archi- 
tecture is  peculiarly  one  of  those  things  which  require  for 
its  creation  premeditation,  protracted  and  careful  training, 
economic  maturity,  and  a  social  atmosphere  of  urbanity  and 
good  manners.  It  would  assuredly  have  been  a  wasteful 
process  to  have  devoted  much  premeditation  and  training 
to  buildings  which,  whether  erected  on  the  border  or  in  the 
cities  of  the  East,  were  in  efifect  nothing  more  than  tempo- 
rary habitations.  What  was  equally  to  be  expected,  how- 
ever, but  what  was  even  more  unfortunate,  was  the  deterio- 
ration which  took  place  in  what  may  be  called  the  technical 
manners  of  the  mechanic. 

The  colonial  mansion  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  work  of 
well-trained  handicraftsmen;  and  if  the  tradition  of  good 
form  had  persisted  among  these  mechanics,  respectable 
dwellings  might  have  been  built — even  though  they  were 
intended  to  be  occupied  only  a  few  years.  But  the  me- 
chanics also  lost  their  tradition  of  careful  work,  and  their 
familiarity  with  pleasant  and  shapely  forms.     In  New  Eng- 

[  107  ] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

land  the  tradition  of  good  work  and  good  forms  lingered 
late;  and  many  of  the  better  farmhouses  erected  in  the 
north  New  England  States  during  the  first  half  of  the  cen- 
tury have  some  quaint  and  well-turned  woodwork  in  them; 
but  in  the  end  the  stone-cutters,  plasterers,  and  carpenters 
were  all  demoralized  by  the  tendency  to  make  most  kinds 
of  a  mechanic  out  of  one  man. 

The  habit  of  doing  thoroughly  good  work  was  succeeded 
by  the  habit  of  doing  work  which  was  only  good  enough. 
On  the  border  it  was  much  more  important  to  build  the 
houses  quickly  than  to  build  them  well;  and  while  in  the 
East  they  still  built  substantially,  the  mechanics  lost  their 
innocent  fidelity  to  establish  forms.  Little  by  little  their 
decorous  trade  manners  disappeared.  In  order  still  fur- 
ther to  demoralize  the  all-important  carpenter,  the  jig- 
saw was  introduced.  Everybody  knew  enough  to  build  a 
house,  and  after  a  while  any  style  was  good  enough  in 
which  to  design  it.  The  spirit  of  the  man  who  bolted  his 
pie  and  doughnuts  in  shy  and  self-conscious  silence  pervaded 
the  land. 

As  we  have  said,  the  English  travelers  of  1830  or  there- 
about could  see  nothing  in  all  this  but  the  vulgarizing  effect 
of  democracy.  The  American  people  had  been  cursed  with 
social  and  esthetic  slovenliness,  because  they  had  forsaken 
the  guiding  and  chastening  influence  of  lords  temporal  and 
spiritual.     But,  fortunately,  at  about  the  same  time,  there 

[108] 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

happened  to  be  a  Frenchman,  who  visited  the  United  States, 
and  whose  intellectual  equanimity  was  not  disturbed  by  the 
absence  of  bishops  and  dukes,  and  no  one  can  understand 
either  the  performance  or  the  promise  of  Arnerican  democ- 
racy without  a  careful  study  of  the  observations  and  conclu- 
sions of  M.  De  Tocqueville  and  a  comparison  of  them  with 
the  country's  subsequent  achievements. 

De  Tocqueville  made  many  errors.  He  mistook  several 
occasional  phases  of  American  life  for  permanent  charac- 
ters; he  attributed  many  traits  to  the  democratic  spirit  which 
should  have  been  attributed  to  the  predominance  of  pioneer 
conditions;  above  all  he  underestimated  the  craving  for  re- 
finement and  distinction  of  form,  which  is  as  essential  to  the 
American  spirit  as  its  good  humor  and  good-fellowship. 
But  what  he  did  recognize  and  was  the  first  to  understand 
and  emphasize  was  the  essential  conservatism  of  the  Ameri- 
can democracy.  The  Englishmen  saw  nothing  in  this  coun- 
try beside  a  sort  of  lawless  and  vulgar  irreverence  of  manner 
and  action;  but  the  Frenchman  divined  that  beneath  the 
quick  changes  of  American  life  and  its  apparent  instability, 
the  indispensable  conditions  of  a  progressive  state  was  se- 
cure, that  property  was  respected,  that  order  were  main- 
tained, and  that  the  people  cherished  their  peculiar  institu- 
tions and  ideas.  And  this  discovery  was  original  with  him 
and  was  important  for  the  generation  that  succeeded  the 
French  Revolution. 

[Ill] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

That  the  American  democracy  is  essentially  conservative 
has  quite  as  important  a  bearing  upon  the  architectural  and 
esthetic  history  of  the  country  as  upon  its  political  and 
social  history.  It  is  true  that  De  Tocqueville  failed  to 
understand  the  significance  of  this  conservatism  on  Ameri- 
can intellectual  development;  and  it  is  true  it  sometimes 
manifested  itself  in  outlandish  ways ;  but  with  the  experi- 
ence of  the  whole  of  the  nineteenth  century  behind  us,  both 
the  fact  and  its  significance  are  fully  evident.  Americans 
have  done  a  vast  amount  of  talking  about  native  American 
styles  of  architecture  and  forms  of  literature;  the  good 
critical  judgment  of  the  country  has  always  been  prone  to 
urge  that  Americans  treat  American  subjects  in  an  Ameri- 
can manner,  and  it  has  generally  welcomed  with  the  utmost 
good  nature  the  first  tender  growths  of  American  originality; 
but  American  practise  in  the  arts  has  persistently  remained 
cautious  and  conservative. 

This  attitude  of  mind  has  sometimes  been  called  by 
harder  names.  American  art  and  letters  are  stated  to  have 
remained  timidly  imitative,  and  at  bottom  nothing  more 
than  colonial  until  very  recent  years,  and  to  have  failed 
wholly  in  the  prime  duty  of  adapting  themselves  to  the  sort  of 
American  life.  But,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  colonialism 
is  only  one  form  of  conservatism,  while  the  imitative  habit 
is  the  very  foundation  of  a  many-sided  civilization.  This 
artistic   conservatism,   which    showed    itself   just   as    plainly 

["2] 


^^^r 

■^^B^^*^ 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

during  the  barren  vulgarity  of  the  middle  years  as  during 
the  comparative  refinement  of  more  modern  times,  must  be 
looked  at  somewhat  closely  lest  its  significance  escape  us. 

American  domestic  architecture  after  1825  or  thereabouts 
ceased  to  be  colonial;  but  it  was  far  from  beginning  to  be 
enterprising  or  independent.  While  it  lost  its  own  tradi- 
tions and  denied  its  own  past,  it  did  not  show  any  originality 
or  self-confidence.  Instead  of  imitating  the  forms  to  which 
it  was  accustomed,  it  began  to  imitate  contemporary  Euro- 
pean architectural  fashions.  If  it  had  possessed  any  genuine 
instinct  for  independence  it  would  have  worked  over  the 
colonial  forms  until  they  had  become  a  vital  and  vernacular 
expression  of  American  life;  but  the  colonial  forms  were 
associated  with  a  colonial  past,  and  the  new  American  de- 
mocracy must  have  a  new  style  of  building. 

Unfortunately,  style  in  this  very  contemporary  and  "  up- 
to-date  "  country  of  ours  has  been  considered  synonymous 
with  fashion;  and  fashion  was  derived  from  Europe.  We 
dressed  our  houses  as  we  dressed  ourselves — according  to 
the  latest  French  and  English  models.  The  very  consist- 
ency in  our  own  national  life  made  us,  as  long  as  one 
fashion  lasted,  the  more  consistent  in  our  copying;  but  one 
fashion  rarely  lasted  very  long — not  much  longer,  indeed, 
than  the  seven  years  or  more  that  it  sometimes  took  merely 
to  construct  one  of  the  fine  old  colonial  dwellings,  and  when 
it  is  remembered  that  these  fashions  were  worked  out  in  de- 

[117] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

tail  by  ill-instructed  mechanics,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the 
dwellings  erected  became  "  the  most  vulgar  habitations  ever 
built  by  man." 

This  may  seem  to  be  a  queer  way  of  showing  the  esthetic 
conservatism  and  the  latent  sense  of  form  mentioned  above; 
but  the  sense  of  form,  although  it  obtained  early  expression 
in  literature,  had  not  as  yet  any  chance  to  show  itself  in  art, 
while  a  conservatism  which  has  nothing  adequate  to  con- 
serve is  working  under  a  disadvantage.  The  colonial  dwell- 
ing was  all  very  well,  but  it  was  assuredly  better  to  throw 
away  these  colonial  forms  than  to  cut  off  American  archi- 
tecture from  the  fountain-head  of  architectural  and  esthetic 
form.  It  was  a  safe  and  a  wholesomely  conservative  instinct 
which  kept  American  architectural  fashions  dependent  upon 
those  of  Europe.  Undoubtedly  the  immediate  effects  could 
not  have  been  much  more  unfortunate,  but  that  was  due  not 
so  much  to  the  habit  of  imitation  as  to  unfavorable  local 
economic  and  social  conditions.  No  work  that  required  pre- 
meditation, careful  training,  and  a  relish  for  formal  beauty 
could  thrive  during  these  transitional  years. 

But  even  in  the  midst  of  their  most  persistent,  indiscrim- 
inate, and  insincere  imitations  they  were  trying  to  do  right. 
Only,  as  is  so  often  the  case  when  people  cut  loose  from 
tradition,  they  could  not  find  the  right  path  until  they  had 
exhausted  many  opportunities  of  going  wrong.  The  new 
world  they  were  constructing  was  founded  on  experimenta- 

[ii8] 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

tion.  It  was  essentially  liberal,  eclectic,  and  open-minded. 
It  welcomed  the  immigration  of  European  architectural 
fashions,  just  as  it  welcomed  the  immigration  of  European 
labor — with  full  confidence  in  the  assimilative  and  educa- 
tional powers  of  the  country.  This  policy  does  not  mean 
necessarily  that  one  man  is  as  good  as  another,  that  one  idea 
is  as  good  as  another,  or  that  one  architectural  style  is  as 
good  as  another;  it  merely  means  that  in  the  beginning  all 
should  have  their  chance.  The  American  citizen  and  the 
American  style  must  be  worked  up  out  of  this  indiscriminate 
material  by  selection  and  education — a  process  more  appro- 
priate, perhaps,  to  the  region  of  civics  and  politics  than  to 
the  region  of  art,  but  at  the  same  time  our  only  road  to 
esthetic  salvation. 

That  this  persistent  dependence  on  Europe  was  inevi- 
table is  sufficiently  shown  by  the  way  in  which  European 
art  and  history  has  cast  a  spell  upon  the  imagination  even 
of  the  most  patriotic  Americans.  Very  few  of  them  whose 
work  has  been  in  any  way  identified  with  the  arts  of  expres- 
sion have  been  free  from  it.  Our  men  of  letters  have  almost 
universally  hastened  across  the  water  as  soon  as  they  could 
find  the  means,  and  their  travels  have  had  a  profound  and 
lasting  influence  upon  their  work.  Take  out  the  results  of 
European  experiences  from  the  v/riting  of  Irving,  Cooper, 
Hawthorne,  Emerson,  Longfellow,  and  Lowell,  and  doubt- 
less much  would   remain;  but  how  radically  would   it  be 

[121] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

modified!  Add  the  effect  of  long  European  travel  to  the 
work  of  Bryant  and  Poe,  and  what  a  transformation  would 
be  wrought!  The  negative  effect  of  European  models  and 
ideals  was  as  all-important  upon  Whitman  as  the  positive 
effect  upon  Lowell.  The  former's  polemic  against  the  in- 
fluence of  feudal  literature  and  life  upon  American  ideas 
only  served  to  show  the  futility  and  sterility  of  an  exclusive 
Americanism.  Moreover,  if  the  artistic  proprieties  and  his- 
toric memorials  of  Europe  gave  both  material  and  form  to 
American  letters,  it  has  been  the  very  life  of  American  art. 
Our  men  of  letters  have  gone  abroad  to  amplify  their  ma- 
terial and  to  finish  off  their  training;  the  American  artist 
has  more  frequently  gone  abroad  to  lay  the  foundation  upon 
which  the  structure  of  his  work  was  to  be  reared. 

Upon  the  immediate  and  essential  practical  activities  of 
American  life,  such  as  politics  and  business,  the  influence  of 
Europe  has  since  the  beginning  of  American  nationality 
naturally  been  very  much  less  important.  The  originality 
and  the  enterprise  of  the  American  people  in  these  two  fields 
are  a  plausible  indication  that  when  the  proper  time  comes 
they  can  vindicate  as  well  their  intellectual  independence. 
It  is  remarkable,  indeed,  how  little  the  most  important 
American  men  of  action  from  1820  to  1870  were  affected  by 
the  influences  to  which  the  men  of  letters  were  most  indebted. 
Neither  Jackson,  Webster,  Lincoln,  nor  Grant  owed  any- 
thing to  Europe  except  the  general  heritage  of  English  law 

[122] 


<    B 

1-1   Ji 


u.  -5 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

and  letters;  and  the  very  qualities  which  we  most  prize  in 
them  are  qualities  which  have  the  most  peculiar  American 
flavor.  At  the  same  time  it  is  useful  to  remember  that  even 
such  very  American  heroes  as  Lincoln  and  Grant,  little  as 
they  owed  to  Europe,  did  not  escape  its  spell.  One  of  the 
very  first  moves  which  Grant  made  after  the  expiration  of 
his  second  presidential  term  was  to  take  a  trip  around  the 
world;  while  Lincoln  was  looking  forward  to  a  voyage  to 
Europe  as  soon  as  he  was  relieved  of  his  immediate  political 
responsibilities. 

All  social  activities  must,  however,  be  guided  by  prece- 
dent and  tradition.  In  the  primary  affairs  of  business  and 
politics  the  American  people  have  had  time  and  opportunity 
to  make  precedents  of  their  own;  in  the  secondary  affair  of 
art  they  were  obliged,  since  they  must  have  some  precedents 
and  traditions,  to  seek  them  on  the  other  side;  and  the  great 
thing  to  remember  is  that  this  was  the  perfectly  normal  and 
natural  method  of  procedure.  It  is  conceivable  that  the 
prophets  of  an  American  and  democratic  art  and  letters 
might  have  established  some  system  of  intellectual  protec- 
tion which  would  have  served  to  discourage  the  importation 
of  foreign  forms  and  models;  yet  if  such  an  effort  had  ob- 
tained any  measure  of  success  it  would  have  served,  not  to 
naturalize  an  American  art,  but  rather  to  denaturalize  it — 
to  make  it  even  more  forced  and  self-conscious  than  it  sub- 
sequently became.     While  American  architecture  and  art  has 

[127] 


^ 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

undoubtedly  been  wanting  in  spontaneous  power  and  instinc- 
tive propriety,  it  could  not  have  obtained  such  unconscious 
propriety  by  means  of  systematic  forcing. 

The  system  of  intellectual  protection  would  merely  have 
helped  to  make  and  keep  American  art  extremely  conscious 
of  its  differences  from  Europe,  and  consequently  to  prevent 
it  from  becoming  in  any  real  sense  naturalized.  For  a  spon- 
taneous and  instinctive  art  is  not  one  which  has  dispensed 
with  traditions;  it  is  rather  one  which  cordially  accepts  the 
traditions  it  possesses  and  is  thoroughly  satisfied  with  them. 
The  American  conscience  could  never  have  been  satisfied 
with  some  application  to  art  of  the  formless  democratic 
protestantism  of  Whitman.  Such  a  protestantism  had  about 
it  nothing  edifying  and  constructive.  Before  originating 
native  forms  the  sense  of  form  itself  had  to  be  acquired,  and 
to  this  end  certain  European  forms  had  to  be  naturalized. 
In  short,  they  did  what  other  people,  even  those  possessed 
of  the  highest  artistic  originality,  have  always  under  similar 
circumstances  done:  they  did  not  try  to  begin  all  over  again, 
but  they  borrowed  what  they  needed. 

These  general  remarks,  while  they  apply  to  all  the  arts, 
apply  with  peculiar  force  to  architecture.  The  fascination 
which  the  Old  World  exercises  upon  the  New  is  much  more 
resident  in  its  historical  buildings,  and  the  painting,  sculp- 
ture, and  adornment  appertaining  to  them,  than  it  is  in  its 
museums.     For  architecture,  while  it  is  capable  of  less  defi- 

[1281 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

nite  human  expression  than  is  painting  or  sculpture,  is  also 
incomparably  richer  in  its  historic  and  human  associations. 
The  momentous  historic  periods  are  illustrated  in  their  paint- 
ing and  sculpture;  but  in  proportion  as  they  were  mature 
they  were  incarnated  in  their  architecture.  The  cathedral 
of  Chartres  and  the  chateau  of  Coucy  sum  up  the  most  and 
the  best  of  medieval  France.  It  is  the  actual  handwriting 
of  the  medieval  Frenchman  which  we  are  reading,  and  it 
makes  an  appeal  to  the  historic  imagination  as  swift  and 
profound  as  the  reader  is  impressionable  and  disinterested. 
To  have  escaped  the  influence  of  such  impressions  would 
have  been  a  confession  of  spiritual  impotence.  To  have  felt 
the  impression,  but  to  have  forcibly  resisted  its  practical  con- 
sequences, would  have  been  a  confession  of  priggish  bar- 
barism. There  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  submit  to  the 
fascination. 

Moreover,  it  may  be  doubted  whether,  whatever  the  case 
in  the  other  arts,  any  escape  from  architectural  imitation 
was  possible.  Architectural  forms  are  not  immediately  bor- 
rowed from  nature;  they  are  rigid  and  conventional.  In  the 
course  of  long  historic  experimentation  certain  special  forms 
have  been  found  to  be  peculiarly  appropriate  to  certain  spe- 
cial human  purposes  and  to  certain  typical  states  of  mind. 
The  classic  forms,  for  instance,  are  most  pertinently  used  in 
buildings  not  dominated  by  personal  feeling;  and  wherever 
it  was  proposed  to  design  a  building,  the  purpose  of  which 

[131] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

was  to  be  public  and  the  effect  of  which  was  to  be  imper- 
sonally and  serenely  beautiful,  these  classical  forms  are 
recommended  by  a  sort  of  archetypal  propriety.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Gothic  forms,  particularly  as  applied  to 
domestic  architecture,  have  about  them  something  very  per- 
sonal and  intimate;  and  the  more  personal  and  pertinent  to 
domestic  life  a  dwelling  becomes,  the  more  inevitable  seems 
the  use  of  some  modification  of  the  late  Gothic  or  early 
Renaissance  domestic  models. 

This  conception  of  architectural  types,  to  which  buildings 
in  which  a  sincere  attempt  is  made  to  reach  some  kind 
of  architectural  propriety  have  a  tendency  to  conform,  is 
undoubtedly  a  dangerous  one,  which  might  easily  be  over- 
worked; but  it  is  one  which  is  justified  by  architectural 
history  and  which  justifies  American  conservatism  in  the 
application  of  architectural  forms.  Our  greater  modern 
dwellings  are,  indeed,  far  from  fulfilling  any  very  appro- 
priate type  of  domestic  architecture;  but  there  is  a  good 
chance  that  incessant  and  very  intelligent  attempts  which  are 
now  being  made  to  adapt  certain  historic  types  to  American 
conditions  will  result  eventually  in  one  or  more  species  of 
dwelling  that  will  be  both  grammatical  and  idiomatic. 


[132] 


THE    CHARACTER    OF    THE 
TRANSITIONAL    DWELLING 


CHAPTER  IV 
Ci^e  diameter  of  ti^e  Cranjstttonal  jDtDelltng 

HE  first  attempts  made  by  the  new  Amer- 
icans to  copy  a  current  European  archi- 
tectural style  was  as  far  as  possible  from 
being  either  grammatical  or  idiomatic. 
In  the  beginning  Europe  as  a  source  of 
architectural  forms  meant  for  Americans  England  only,  and 
at  least  part  of  the  decadence  of  American  dwellings  from 
1825  on  was  the  direct  result  of  the  decadence  of  English 
architecture.  The  publication  of  Stuart  and  Revett's  de- 
tailed plates  of  classic  architecture  had  encouraged  Euro- 
pean architects  about  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century 
to  acquire  merit  by  building  modern  Parthenons — that  is,  by 
the  precise  and  literal  duplication  of  classic  temples;  and 
our  countrymen,  who  have  always  had  a  weakness  for  the 
grandiose,  were  not  long  in  following  this  example. 

Latrobe's  amendments  to  the  design  for  the  portico  of 
the  Capitol,  executed  in  181 5,  gave  the  first  indication  of  the 
new  movement,  which  later  produced,  among  other  build- 
ings, the  Girard  Bank,  the  Second  Bank  of  the  United  States, 

[137] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

and  the  Mint,  all  in  Philadelphia.  This  Greek  revival  dom- 
inated American  architecture  until  1840,  and  after;  it  re- 
mained the  official  style  even  until  i860.  Its  most  notable 
examples,  in  addition  to  those  just  mentioned,  are  the  Treas- 
ury Department,  the  Patent  Office,  the  general  Post-Office 
in  Washington,  the  Sub-Treasury  in  New  York,  and  the 
present  Custom-House  in  that  city,  built  in  1841  for  the 
Merchants'  Exchange  from  the  designs  of  Isaiah  Rogers. 

These  public  buildings,  unlike  the  colonial  dwellings, 
were  many  of  them  designed  by  architects  who  had  some 
training;  and  it  is  worth  while  to  pause  for  a  moment  and 
consider  what  the  status  and  character  of  the  architectural 
profession  in  this  country  was  just  at  that  period.  We  have 
said  that  the  colonial  dwelling  was  the  work  of  mechanics, 
and  the  statement  is  true;  but  it  must  not  be  supposed  that 
the  colonies  had  been  entirely  without  men  who  had  some 
theoretic  knowledge  of  architecture.  Throughout  the  later 
colonial  period  the  local  amateur  architect  played  an  im- 
portant and  seemly  part,  and  did  much,  not  to  supersede  the 
skilled  mechanic,  but  to  supplement  him. 

The  earliest  examples  of  these  local  amateurs  were  Dr. 
John  Kearsley,  who  designed  Christ  Church  in  Philadelphia 
in  1727,  and  Andrew  Hamilton,  the  well-known  lawyer,  who 
in  173 1  designed  the  State  House  in  Philadelphia,  since 
known  as  Independence  Hall.  These  men  were  the  prede- 
cessors of  Jefferson,  Dr.  Thornton,  and  others,  precisely  as 

[138] 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

"  a  Mr.  Dufif,  the  architect  from  Scotland,"  who  came  to  this 
country  at  the  invitation  of  Governor  Bianden  to  erect  St. 
John's  College  at  Annapolis,  and  Peter  Harrison,  a  pupil  of 
Vanbrugh,  who  was  imported  in  1747  to  design  and  super- 
intend the  building  of  King's  chapel  in  Boston,  were  the 
precursors  of  Latrobe,  Hallett,  Hadfield,  and  Charles  Bull- 
finch— the  last  by  repute  the  first  American  who  embraced 
the  profession  of  architecture. 

These  early  architects  were — that  is,  almost  exclusively 
— men  who  were  born  and  trained  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic;  and  it  was  inevitable  that  they  should  introduce 
into  this  country  the  latest  thing  in  English  architecture, 
which  was,  of  course,  the  rigid  classicism  mentioned  above. 
If  the  use  of  this  style  had  been  confined  to  large  public 
buildings  the  result,  while  sometimes  tolerably  inconvenient, 
would  not  have  been  wholly  incongruous,  but  we  showed 
our  foolish  lamb-like  originality  by  adapting  it  to  domestic 
buildings  and  by  substituting  wood  as  the  material  for  stone. 
The  well-to-do  American  of  the  fourth  decade  of  the  cen- 
tury built  for  his  country,  and  occasionally  even  for  his  city, 
house  a  wooden  Doric  or  Ionic  temple. 

Of  course,  in  a  residence  of  this  type  the  order  could  be 
nothing  but  a  structural  excrescence;  but  at  about  this  same 
period,  or  a  little  earlier,  a  veranda,  which  afforded  some 
protection  against  the  sun,  was  becoming  a  popular  and  use- 
ful addition  to  the  country  dwelling;  and  by  running  the 

[  141  ] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

order  up  through  two  stories,  and  enclosing  the  veranda  by 
means  of  it,  the  architectural  and  practical  innovations  were 
united  in  one  incongruous  and  meaningless  result.  Build- 
ings of  this  class,  which  were  sometimes  designed  by  com- 
paratively well-instructed  architects,  were  by  no  means  so 
decadent  architecturally  as  some  of  the  residences  which  suc- 
ceeded them;  but  they  were  a  singular  example  of  inappro- 
priate pretension  and  practical  inconvenience.  The  order 
and  the  pediment  gave  the  whole  building  an  architectural 
scale  which  it  could  not  maintain,  and  at  the  same  time  it 
darkened  the  rooms  on  the  second  floor. 

That  practical-minded  Americans  should  have  submitted 
to  such  an  inconvenient  arrangement  is  one  of  the  curiosities 
of  architecture,  and  would  be  hard  to  explain  were  it  not 
that  one  meets  with  so  many  other  examples  of  the  same 
thing.  The  lamp  of  self-sacrifice  is  surely  one  of  the  seven 
lamps  of  bad  as  well  as  of  good  architecture.  The  people 
who  owned  and  occupied  these  buildings  doubtless  thought 
that  they  were  suflfering  in  the  good  cause  of  architectural 
dignity. 

Dwellings  of  this  class  were  built  for  very  many  years 
all  over  the  North,  but  as  many  of  them  were  erected  on 
or  near  the  banks  of  the  Hudson  River  as  in  any  other 
section  of  the  country.  The  Hudson  appealed  to  the  mid- 
century  American's  sense  of  the  picturesque  in  nature.  Just 
as  he  liked  to  compare  the  bay  of  New  York  with  the  bay  of 

[  142  ] 


Newport  Residence  of  Ogden  Goelet.  Richard  M.   Hunt,   Architect. 

HALL    IN    "  OCHRE    COURT." 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

Naples,  so  he  flattered  himself  with  contrasting  the  natural 
beauty  of  the  Hudson  with  the  romantic  beauty  of  the  Rhine. 

Having  no  architectural  ruins  with  which  to  enhance  the 
beauty  of  its  banks,  he  substituted  in  their  place  the  ruins  of 
architectural  styles.  Miss  Frederika  Bremer,  who  visited 
this  country  about  1850,  and  who  stayed  for  some  weeks  in 
the  house  of  Mr.  A.  J.  Downing  at  Newburgh,  remarked 
upon  the  number  of  Greek  or  Doric  "  temples "  w^hich 
lined  the  border  of  the  river;  and  it  pleased  our  sentimental 
visitor  that  the  American  home  should  assume  these  sacred 
forms;  but  by  the  year  of  her  visit  Americans  of  the  North 
had  abandoned  their  attempt  to  make  their  residences  revive 
the  perfected  glories  of  Greek  architecture. 

For  long  thereafter  New  Yorkers  of  taste,  however,  re- 
mained true  to  the  Hudson.  The  stately  mansion  in  the 
"  Greek  "  style  was  succeeded  by  the  ''  picturesque  "  villa. 
Artists  particularly  satisfied  their  craving  for  literary  land- 
scapes by  country  houses  that  commanded  some  entertaining 
view  of  the  river,  and  no  single  fact  could  more  suggestively 
point  the  transformation  of  our  esthetic  ideals  than  the 
extent  to  which  the  Hudson  has  lost  the  peculiar  preemi- 
nence which  it  once  possessed  for  the  American  "  artistic  " 
imagination. 

The  stately  wooden  Parthenon,  while,  however,  it  was 
soon  superseded  in  the  North,  satisfied  a  much  more  perma- 
nent demand  in  the  South.     Social  conditions  were  relatively 

[147] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

Stable  in  that  section  of  the  country  until  the  ruin  of  the 
Civil  War  descended  upon  it.  The  Southern  planters  had 
no  picturesque  ideas,  but  they  had  a  conviction  of  their 
own  social  eminence,  which  was  satisfied  by  the  pretentious 
grandeur  of  the  wooden  temple.  The  great  practical  defect 
of  the  style,  which  consisted  of  the  darkening  of  the  rooms 
on  the  second  floor,  was  even  somewhat  of  an  advantage  for 
people  to  whom  it  was  an  object,  during  the  larger  part  of 
the  year,  to  mitigate  the  rigors  of  the  sun's  rays;  and  not 
infrequently  the  veranda  and  the  rows  of  columns  were  run 
around  three  sides  of  the  house.  The  high,  spacious  piazzas 
obtained  in  this  way  were  further  screened  by  large  trees, 
which  were  always  planted  in  the  immediate  neighborhood 
of  the  building. 

In  plan  and  purpose  these  dwellings  followed  very 
closely  along  the  lines  of  the  colonial  manor-house.  They 
tended  to  be  cubical  buildings,  the  ground  floor  of  which 
contained  the  usual  parlor,  sitting-room,  dining-room,  and 
library  or  oflSces.  The  outbuildings  were  numerous  but  un- 
important, and  were  intended  for  the  accommodation  of  the 
domestic  slaves.  In  every  detail  except  plan  this  type  of 
dwelling  was  as  much  of  an  exception  and  incongruity  in 
American  life  as  the  domestic  institutions  and  social  system 
on  which  it  was  based. 

The  very  fact  that  they  were  built  for  the  most  part  of 
wood,  stucco  being  only  occasionally  used  in  the  far  South, 

[148] 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

was  an  indication  that  the  economic  basis  of  the  system  was 
shifting  and  restricted.  The  rich  Southern  planter  rarely 
had  much  money  ahead;  his  receipts  varied  considerably  in 
different  years ;  he  spent  his  income  generously  upon  his  liv- 
ing and  upon  his  dependents ;  and  he  was  rarely  in  a  position 
to  erect  really  substantial  and  permanent  buildings.  That 
he  would  have  done  so  eventually  had  the  South  succeeded 
in  gaining  its  independence,  and  had  the  economic  condi- 
tions in  that  part  of  the  country  become  more  stable,  is  most 
certainly  to  be  believed,  for  the  Southern  planter  was  thor- 
ough in  his  own  way  and  stood  for  good  manners  in  all  the 
aspects  of  life;  but  as  it  was  he  was  never  in  a  position  to 
build  for  more  than  a  generation. 

At  about  the  time  when  the  wooden  temple  came  in,  a 
class  of  building  which  we  have  not  yet  had  any  occasion  to 
consider  was  growing  in  importance.  We  refer  to  the  city 
house  built  immediately  against  the  adjoining  house,  and 
forming  with  it  and  other  neighboring  houses  a  city  row  or 
block.  Hitherto  the  prominent  types  of  American  resi- 
dences have  either  been  rural  or  at  most  suburban;  but 
during  the  first  three  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century  the 
cities  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  and  particularly  New  York, 
began  to  grow  very  rapidly,  and  as  they  grew,  the  urban 
houses,  even  of  well-to-do  people,  began  to  be  huddled  to- 
gether in  as  small  a  space  as  possible.  In  describing  these 
houses  we  shall  deal  chiefly  with  the  New  York  examples, 

[151] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

because  their  decadence  during  the  middle  period  and  their 
renewal  in  more  recent  times  have  been  most  conspicuous 
and  can  best  be  traced  in  that  city. 

It  fortunately  happens  that  we  have  a  very  good  con- 
temporary description  of  the  sort  of  block  dwelling  with 
which  New  York  started,  and  which  to  this  day  remains 
better  than  any  which  has  succeeded  it.  In  1826  James 
Fenimore  Cooper,  in  the  interest  of  his  praiseworthy  but 
futile  ambition  to  explain  America  for  the  benefit  both  of 
Americans  and  Europeans,  published  a  book  called  "  Notions 
of  the  Americans,  or  the  Notes  of  a  Traveling  Bachelor." 
In  his  assumed  character  of  a  European  traveler  he  has  a 
good  deal  more  to  say  in  this  book  about  contemporary 
buildings  than  has  any  European  traveler  of  that  date;  and 
he  shows  in  his  comments  on  this  and  other  matters  a  con- 
siderable and  discriminating  knowledge  of  the  methods  of 
life  and  habits  of  mind  of  his  countrymen. 

Cooper  distinguishes  two  types  among  the  residences  of 
New  York,  the  first  of  which  he  describes  as  a  "  species  of 
second-rate  genteel  house."  "  They  have,"  he  says,  "  as 
usual,  a  story  that  is  half  sunk  in  the  earth,  receiving  light 
from  the  area,  and  two  floors  above.  The  tenants  of  these 
are  chiefly  merchants  or  professional  men  in  moderate  cir- 
cumstances, who  pay  rents  of  from  $300  to  $500  a  year. 
You  know  that  no  American  who  is  at  all  comfortable  in 
life  will  share  his   dwelling  with   another.     Each   has   his 


Newport   Residence   of  the   late   Cornelius   Vanderbilt.  Richard   M.    Hunt,    Architect. 

DINING-ROOM     IN    "  THE    BREAKERS." 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

own  roof  and  his  own  little  yard.  These  buildings  are  fur- 
nished, and  exceedingly  well  finished,  too,  to  the  attics,  con- 
taining on  an  average  six  rooms,  besides  offices  and  servants' 
apartments.  The  furniture  of  these  houses  is  often  elegant, 
and  always  neat.  Mahogany  abounds  here  and  is  commonly 
used  for  all  the  principal  articles,  and  very  frequently  for 
doors  and  the  railings  of  the  stairs.  Indeed,  the  whole 
world  contributes  to  their  luxury.  French  clocks,  English 
and  Brussels  carpets,  curtains  from  Lyons  and  the  Indies, 
alabaster  from  France  and  Italy,  and  marbles  of  their  own 
and  from  Italy."  *'  In  that  classical  taste,"  he  adds,  "  which 
has  been  so  happily  communicated  to  your  French  artisans, 
they  are,  without  doubt,  miserably  deficient;  but  they  are 
good  imitators,  and  there  is  no  scarcity  of  models." 

In  the  same  ostensible  letter  Cooper  enters  into  a  descrip- 
tion of  a  house,  the  proprietor  of  which  is  "  a  gentleman  of 
the  first  society  of  the  country  and  of  what  is  called  easy 
fortune."  "  The  house  in  question,"  he  says,  "  occupies 
about  thirty- four  feet  on  the  Broadway,  and  extends  in  the 
rear  between  sixty  and  seventy  more  (sic).  There  are  no 
additions,  the  building  ascending  from  the  ground  floor  to 
the  attics  in  the  same  proportions.  The  exterior  necessarily 
presents  a  narrow  ill-arranged  facade  that  puts  architectural 
beauty  a  good  deal  at  defiance."  (The  building  had  a  high 
stoop  and  contained  four  stories.)  "The  first  floor  is  occu- 
pied  by   two    rooms   that   communicate   by   double    doors. 

[157] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

These  apartments  are  nearly  of  equal  size,  and,  subtracting 
the  space  occupied  by  the  passage  and  two  little  china  closets 
that  partially  separate  them,  they  cover  the  whole  area  of 
the  house.  Each  room  is  lighted  by  two  windows,  is  suffi- 
ciently high,  has  a  stuccoed  ceiling  and  cornices  in  white, 
hangings  of  light,  airy  French  paper,  curtains  in  silk  and 
muslin,  mantelpieces  of  carved  figures  in  white  marble 
(Italian  in  manufacture),  Brussels  carpets,  large  mirrors 
and  chairs,  sofas  and  tables  in  mahogany.  In  one  of  the 
rooms,  however,  is  a  spacious,  heavy,  ill-looking  sideboard 
in  mahogany,  groaning  with  plates,  knives,  and  spoon  cases 
— all  handsome  enough,  but  out  of  place  where  they  are. 
You  will  see  by  what  I  have  written  that  the  Americans 
have  not  yet  adopted  a  style  of  architecture  of  their  own. 
Their  houses  are  still  essentially  English." 

We  have  quoted  from  Cooper  at  length  because  of  the 
fulness  of  his  descriptions,  and  because  the  time  his  observa- 
tions were  made  (1826)  marked  almost  the  end  of  the  old 
and  the  beginning  of  a  new  period  in  the  domestic  architec- 
ture of  New  York  City.  The  houses  which  he  describes 
were  an  urban  product  of  the  colonial  tradition;  they  were 
built  by  well-trained  mechanics,  by  carpenters  and  plasterers 
who  were  accustomed  to  good  models,  and  were,  as  Cooper 
says,  good  imitators.  They  were  the  outcome  of  a  loyally 
accepted  convention,  which  for  the  time  being  no  one  thought 
of  disturbing.     Consequently,  Mrs.  Trollope,  writing  about 

[158] 


Newport  Residence  of  the  lace   Cornelius  Vanderbilt.  Richard  M.   Hunt,   Architect. 

HALL    AND    STAIRWAY    IN    "  THE    BREAKERS." 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

five  years  later,  finds  them  somewhat  monotonous;  but  if  so, 
the  monotony  was  very  decorous.  The  dwellings  mentioned 
have  been  well  described  by  a  good  judge  as  "  the  most 
respectable  and  artistic  pattern  of  habitation  New  York  has 
ever  known." 

This  description,  however,  applies  better  to  the  smaller 
than  to  the  larger  of  the  two  houses.  The  smaller  house 
possessed  a  position  and  delightful  esthetic  quality:  it  was 
decidedly  more  "  elegant "  than  the  analogous  habitation  in 
Puritanic  Boston  or  Quakerish  Philadelphia — perhaps  be- 
cause New  York  had  neither  a  Quakerish  nor  a  Puritanic 
past.  "  These  small  houses,"  says  Mr.  Montgomery  Schuy- 
ler, "  owed  their  elegance  to  the  ornament  which  w^as  applied 
to  it  very  modestly  and  very  sparingly,  but  none  the  less 
effectively.  In  the  first  place,  the  area  was  protected  by  a 
well-designed  railing  of  wrought  iron,  continued  or  varied 
as  the  hand-rail  of  the  stoop,  and  the  posts,  if  hollow  cages 
can  be  called  so,  in  which  these  hand-rails  terminated,  were 
elaborated  in  various  degrees  of  ornateness."  The  doorway 
was  the  other  decorated  member  of  the  house,  and  while 
occasionally  executed  in  stone,  it  was  more  often  an  order 
of  Ionic  or  Doric  columns — treated  with  unfailing  propriety 
of  effect.  These  houses  were  as  comfortable  to  inhabit  as 
they  were  pleasant  to  look  at,  for  they  generally  measured 
about  25  X  40,  and  all  the  rooms  were  spacious,  well-propor- 
tioned, and  well-lighted. 

[161] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

There  are  evidences,  however,  that  the  larger  dwelling 
*  which  Cooper  described  belongs  to  a  somewhat  later  period. 
The  building  is  four  stories  high,  and  the  entrance  is  reached 
by  a  much  higher  stoop;  the  roof  is  entirely  concealed,  and 
the  fagade  lacks  the  distinction  and  the  opportunity  for  orna- 
mentation which  the  dormers  gave  to  the  smaller  dwelling. 
It  appears,  indeed,  to  be  much  the  same  type  of  residence 
which  survives  at  present  on  North  Washington  Square  and 
which  was  somewhat  influenced  by  the  Greek  revival,  which 
at  that  time  was  beginning  to  have  its  effect.  This  larger 
type  of  building,  while  it  retained  the  respectability  of  its 
more  modest  predecessor,  lacked  the  elegance;  and  there- 
after, until  the  influence  of  the  distinctly  modern  movement 
began,  respectable  is  the  very  best  word  which  any  man 
would  dare  to  apply  to  American  residences. 

It  is  interesting  to  note,  however,  that  the  interior  deco- 
ration and  furnishing  of  these  houses  show  more  consider- 
able departures  from  the  colonial  traditions  than  do  the 
exteriors.  The  general  effect  of  the  rooms  was  doubtless 
very  much  the  same,  but  the  use  of  marble  mantelpieces  was 
a  plain  innovation,  while  the  conspicuous  references  to 
Brussels  carpets  shows  that  the  days  of  well-waxed  hard- 
wood floors  were  over.  The  newer  furniture  was  departing 
from  colonial  models,  although,  of  course,  many  genuine 
colonial  pieces  were  still  in  use. 

In    1810  or   thereabouts   the   so-called   "Empire"   style 

[162] 


Newport  Residence  of  the  late  Cornelius  Vanderbilt.  Richard  M.   Hunt,   Architect. 

MAIN    HALL    IN    "  THE    BREAKERS." 


THE   TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

began  to  prevail  among  well-to-do  people,  particularly  in 
New  York,  which  has  always  been  the  port  of  entry  for 
foreign  influences;  and  this  is  extremely  significant,  because 
it  is  the  first  indication  that  models  other  than  those  derived 
from  England  were  beginning  to  be  copied.  The  Amer- 
ican residences,  as  Cooper  remarked,  were  still  essentially 
English;  but  the  second  war  with  Great  Britain,  the  com- 
parative popularity  of  French  ideas,  and  the  increasing 
familiarity  of  Americans  with  France  and  the  other  conti- 
nental countries  were  beginning  to  have  their  eflfect.  The 
"  Empire  "  furniture  was  a  modification  in  mahogany  of  the 
French  style  of  the  Empire.  Its  characteristic  forms  were 
heavier  and  clumsier  than  those  of  the  colonial  furniture;  it 
lacked  the  refinement  of  line  and  simplicity  of  form  of  the 
latter.  It  was  more  chunky,  solid,  and  bourgeois,  and  was 
consequently  well  adapted  to  a  society  in  which  the  respect- 
able man  no  longer  needed  to  be  a  man  of  taste.  Later  even 
the  comparative  excellence  of  the  Empire  style  was  gradu- 
ally lost,  and  the  prevailing  forms  ran  over  into  meaningless 
complications  and  a  sort  of  stupid  solidity.  At  the  same 
time  the  taste  for  loud  and  shining  upholstery  waxed  ram- 
pant, and  the  Dark  Middle  Age  of  American  interior  deco- 
ration began. 

The  process  was  analogous  to  that  which  was  going  on 
in  the  architectural  forms  proper,  but  its  efifects  first  became 
conspicuous  in  the  interior  of  the  houses.     French  influence 

[167] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

was  intruding  into  all  the  divisions  of  American  life,  the 
doors  of  which  were  easily  opened.  It  began  with  the 
French  dancer  and  dressmaker.  "Broadway,"  says  Mrs. 
Trollope,  "  might  be  taken  for  a  French  street  where  it  was 
the  fashion  of  very  smart  ladies  to  promenade.  The  dress  is 
entirely  French;  not  an  article  (except,  perhaps,  the  cotton 
stockings)  must  be  English,  on  the  pain  of  being  stigma- 
tized as  out  of  fashion.  Everything  English  is  decidedly 
mauvais  ton." 

It  soon  spread,  however,  to  the  other  favorite  preoccu- 
pation of  polite  society.  Americans  began  gradually  to 
realize  that  if  they  wanted  good  form  in  everything,  except 
men's  clothes,  they  must  go  to  Paris  instead  of  to  London; 
and  it  was  a  gradual  realization,  for  which,  no  matter  how 
unfortunate  and  frivolous  its  first  effects,  we  Americans  of 
the  present  time  may  be  devoutly  thankful.  Some  of  us,  at 
all  events,  like  to  believe  that  the  American  democratic  spirit 
has  within  it  a  latent  sense  of  form  and  a  submerged  but 
deep-rooted  passion  for  ideas  which  is  more  French  than 
English,  and  that  consequently  the  rejection  of  French  influ- 
ence, which  would  have  resulted  either  from  a  continued 
close  alliance  with  England  or  from  the  adoption  of  a  sys- 
tem of  artistic  protection,  would  have  meant  a  distorted  or 
mutilated  American  intellectual  growth. 

However  that  may  be.  New  York,  which  had  always  been 
composite  in  blood  and  tradition,  and  which  was  just  then 

[i68] 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

beginning  to  welcome  the  earliest  of  the  Irish  immigrants, 
was  also  becoming  more  cosmopolitan  in  ideas  and  tastes. 
French  wall-paper  and  clocks,  and  ornaments  brought  ap- 
parently in  miscellaneous  profusion  from  other  European 
countries,  betray  the  increasingly  varied  sources  from  which 
New  Yorkers  were  beginning  to  derive  their  ornaments  and 
hangings.  Mrs.  TroUope  supplies  additional  testimony  to 
this  effect.  "  The  dwelling-houses  of  the  higher  classes,"  she 
says,  "  are  extremely  handsome  and  very  richly  furnished. 
Silk  or  satin  furniture  is  as  often  or  oftener  seen  than  chintz; 
the  mirrors  are  as  handsome  as  in  London;  the  chiffoniers, 
slabs,  and  marble  tables  as  elegant;  and  in  addition  they  have 
all  the  pretty  tasteful  decorations  of  French  porcelain  and 
ormolu  in  much  greater  abundance,  because  at  a  much 
cheaper  rate.  Every  part  of  their  houses  is  well-carpeted, 
and  the  exterior  finishing,  such  as  steps,  railings,  and  door- 
frames, are  very  superior." 

Mrs.  TroUope's  taste  was  evidently  as  English  as  her 
ideas.  She  liked  New  York  interiors  because  they  reminded 
her,  even  in  their  indiscriminate  use  of  imported  knick- 
knacks  and  gimcracks,  of  the  domestic  scenery  of  London; 
bSt  nevertheless  the  scenery  was  even  then  in  the  way  of 
being  shifted.  And  how  plainly  does  she  foreshadow  in  her 
description  the  heavy,  tasteless,  pretentious,  frivolous,  mean- 
ingless, complicated,  cosmopolitan  stupidities  and  superflui- 
ties of  the  "  Dark  Middle  Age." 

[171] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

That  middle  age  was  in  truth  fast  descending  upon  New 
York.  The  types  of  dwelling  described  above  lasted  for 
only  a  few  years  longer,  and  every  change  was  a  change  for 
the  worse.  The  dormer  was  soon  entirely  abandoned;  the 
ironwork  lost  its  simplicity  and  charm;  the  stoops  became 
higher  and  ill-proportioned;  the  houses  frequently  had  an- 
other story  added  to  them,  and  the  bloated  metal  cornice 
began  to  replace  the  wooden  cornice  and  parapet.  The  plan 
of  the  houses  deteriorated  with  the  design.  The  average 
house  began  to  be  narrower  and  deeper,  and  to  have  a  mid- 
dle room,  which  was  necessarily  very  badly  lighted.  The 
basement  floor  was  generally  raised  somewhat,  and  the  din- 
ing-room, which  had  formerly  been  the  rear  of  the  two 
rooms  on  the  entrance  floor,  was  sent  down-stairs  to  the  front 
basement. 

Most  fatal  of  all,  a  stone  was  gradually  substituted  for 
the  brick,  which  had  been  hitherto  the  exclusive  material — 
the  first  stone  which  had  ever  been  used  to  any  large  extent 
in  American  building.  "  They  are  now  using,"  says  Mrs. 
TroUope,  "  a  great  deal  of  a  beautiful  stone  called  Jersey 
freestone.  It  is  of  a  warm,  rich  brown,  and  extremely  orna- 
mental to  the  city  wherever  it  is  employed."  This  quotation 
is  an  excellent  reflection  of  the  prevalent  opinion  throughout 
many  years  of  the  favorite  building  material  of  New  York. 
New  Yorkers  congratulated  themselves  that  in  this  brown- 
stone  they  had  near  at  hand  an  easily  worked  economical  and 

[  172] 


t^^ 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

good-looking  building  material;  and  the  references  to  it  in 
periodicals  until  the  last  twenty-five  years  was  one  of  almost 
fatuous  self-complacency. 

At  the  time  Mrs.  TroUope  wrote  it  was  not  being  used 
in  very  large  quantities,  but  thereafter  it  rapidly  giew  in 
favor,  and  in  the  end  entirely  displaced  brick  for  the  outside 
coating  of  a  building.  Surely  no  great  city  ever  selected 
such  a  bad  material  for  exclusive  use,  and  no  city  ever  used 
a  bad  material  worse.  "  The  rubbed  slab  of  brownstone," 
says  Mr.  Russell  Sturgis  in  his  essay  on  "  Stone  in  American 
Architecture,"  "  set  up  edgewise  and  attached  after  a  fashion 
to  a  wall  of  brick  behind  it,  has  been  instrumental  in  devel- 
oping perhaps  the  most  unintelligent  style  of  street  archi- 
tecture of  modern  times.  Nor  was  the  stupidity  of  the 
architecture  in  question  much  relieved  by  the  use  of  the  same 
stone  in  more  solid  blocks,  as  in  the  retaining  walls  and  fa- 
cing of  areas  in  the  stoops,  or  even  in  the  columned  porches 
by  which  the  stoops  were  crowned.  All  partook  of  the  same 
spirit  of  dull,  flat,  dusk-brown  monotony,  and  there  is  no 
doubt  that  there  was  a  reaction,  and  that  other  materials  than 
stone  seemed  to  be  identified  with  any  artistic  reform." 

In  1840  this  New  Jersey  brownstone  was  being  used 
largely  for  New  York  residences ;  ten  years  later  it  was  being 
used  almost  exclusively;  and  from  that  time  until  about  1885 
its  reign  was  almost  undisputed.  Its  use,  moreover,  was  not 
confined  to  inexpensive  dwellings;  it  dominated  Fifth  Ave- 

[177] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

nue  even  more  than  it  dominated  the  lower-numbered  streets. 
The  expensive  brick  dwelling  ends  at  Washington  Square; 
it  crept  into  a  few  houses  on  Fifth  Avenue  between  that 
square  and  Fourteenth  Street;  but  for  the  most  part  the 
"  rich,  warm  "  stone  prevails  even  on  that  part  of  the  avenue. 
The  wealthy  people  had  no  inclination  to  draw  any  marked 
distinction  between  their  houses  and  those  of  their  poorer 
neighbors.  Indeed,  it  has  been  characteristic  of  New  York 
that  the  dwellings  of  the  rich  did  not  until  very  recently 
differ  from  the  dwellings  of  only  moderately  well-to-do 
people — except  in  size  and  sumptuousness. 

During  all  these  years  the  city  was  growing  so  rapidly 
that  not  infrequently  the  population  ran  ahead  of  the  house- 
room.  It  happened  several  times  in  the  spring  of  the  year 
that  many  families  who  were  obliged  to  vacate  their  houses 
could  not  find  other  accommodations,  and  had  to  submit  to 
the  humiliation  of  being  temporarily  lodged  in  jail  and  of 
seeing  their  household  goods  stacked  under  cover  in  City 
Hall  Park.  It  was  this  rapid  and  irresistible  growth  of  the 
city  which  has  given  the  peculiar  economic  importance  to 
the  New  York  speculative  builder.  Year  after  year,  in  order 
to  meet  the  demands  of  the  rapidly  increasing  population, 
rows  upon  rows  of  houses  were  built,  and  they  were  built  so 
rapidly  and  their  character  was  so  completely  dominated  by 
economic  necessities  that  they  became  extraordinarily  uni- 
form in  plan  and  appearance.     The  houses  of  the  rich  did 

■■  [  178  ] 


Newport  Residence  of  O.    H.    P.    Belmont.  Richard  M.    Hunt,   Architect. 

HALLWAY    OF    THE    SECOND    STORY    OF    "  BELCOURT." 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

not  escape  this  influence  any  more  than  the  houses  of  the 
poor. 

In  the  other  Eastern  American  cities  dwellings  of  wealthy 
people  tended  to  be  specially  designed,  partly  because  there 
was  never  enough  demand  for  such  houses  to  make  it  worth 
the  while  of  speculative  builders  to  erect  them;  but  in  New 
York,  both  because  it  contained  so  many  wealthy  men  and 
because,  owing  to  the  rapid  growth  of  the  city,  these  wealthy 
men  were  obliged  to  change  their  residences  so  frequently, 
the  speculative  builder  erected  and  sold  expensive  houses  as 
readily  as  he  did  cheap  ones.  The  great  majority  of  Fifth 
Avenue  houses  were  erected  in  rows  as  a  speculation  by  the 
purely  commercial  dealer.  This  custom  has  continued  until 
the  present  day  and  has  had  a  deadening  and  impoverishing 
effect  upon  the  design  and  plan  of  the  greater  residences  of 
New  York. 

It  was,  however,  during  the  decade  between  1850  and 
i860  that  we  get  the  first  glimpses  of  modern  New  York. 
Early  in  the  decade  the  city  was  being  transformed  by  the 
destruction  of  old  and  the  erection  of  new  buildings;  and  the 
movement  seemed  as  unique  and  as  extraordinary  to  the  New 
Yorker  of  that  day  as  the  more  complete  transformation  now 
in  progress  seems  to  our  contemporaries.  The  reconstruc- 
tion was  taking  place  quite  as  much  on  the  residential  as  on 
the  business  streets.  Large  numbers  of  very  expensive  dwell- 
ings were  being  erected,  and  by  their  more  imposing  size  and 

[181] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

aspect  were  beginning  to  suggest  the  modern  distinction  of 
New  York  as  peculiarly  the  city  of  wealthy  people.  In  the 
spring  of  1854  a  writer  in  "  Putnam's  Monthly"  set  out  to 
record  the  recent  achievements  of  New  York  builders,  and 
his  comments  upon  the  private  residences  then  being  erected 
on  Fifth  Avenue,  from  Washington  Square  to  Twenty-third 
Street,  are  an  interesting  revelation  of  the  way  in  which  a 
New  Yorker  of  that  day,  who  was  not  without  some  archi- 
tectural information,  understood  and  valued  the  contempo- 
rary architectural  eruption. 

The  writer  overflows  with  metropolitan  complacency. 
New  York  is  the  greatest  city  in  the  country,  and  the  New 
York  of  1854  is  much  superior,  not  only  in  size,  but  in  dig- 
nity and  elegance  to  the  New  York  of  any  previous  period. 
"  The  exigences,"  he  says,  "  of  our  rapid  growth,  the  sudden 
accumulation  of  large  fortunes,  the  instincts  of  our  building 
architects,  are  daily  manifesting  themselves  in  some  remark- 
able examples  of  architectural  ingenuity  and  external  orna- 
mentation which  put  all  precedent  at  defiance  and  set  at 
naught  established  rules.  The  new  city  has  risen  up  like 
enchantment,  telling  of  new  times,  a  new  people,  new  tastes, 
and  new  habits.  The  old  houses  on  Broadway  were  all  of 
brick,  and  plain  in  their  exterior  beyond  belief;"  but  now 
"  plain  brick  fronts  have  been  succeeded  by  dressed  free- 
stone and  sculptured  marble;  plate-glass  has  become  univer- 
sal, and  lace  window  drapery  has  displaced  the  old  chintz 

[182] 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

curtains  which  once  flaunted  their  bright  colors  through 
small  window-panes." 

He  then  goes  on  to  describe  some  of  the  newer  residences. 
The  "  most  elegant  Grecian  mansion  "  in  New  York  is,  he 
says,  situated  in  College  Place  at  the  corner  of  Murray 
Street;  and  he  considers  it  a  more  successful  example  of 
architecture  than  the  "  Egyptian  "  house  of  Mr.  R.  L.  Ste- 
vens on  Barclay  Street.  These  buildings,  however,  were  old- 
fashioned  in  1854.  The  "Grecian"  style  "both  in  this 
country  and  England  had  been  succeeded  by  a  revival  of  the 
"  Italian  style  " — and  more  particularly  "  that  modification 
of  it  which  prevails  at  Florence." 

Many  of  the  first  brown-stone  houses  on  Fifth  Avenue 
were  built  in  this  "  Italian  style,"  but  it  by  no  means  exclu- 
sively prevailed.  A  building  on  the  corner  of  Tenth  Street 
and  Fifth  Avenue  was  taken  to  be  a  mixture  of  French  and 
Italian,  "  with  a  remnant  of  the  Gothic  principle  "  traceable 
in  some  of  the  details.  As  he  goes  on  he  mentions  a  number 
of  new  "  Gothic "  residences,  such,  for  instance,  as  those 
which  may  still  be  seen  at  another  corner  of  Fifth  Avenue, 
at  Tenth  Street;  but  the  majority  of  the  new  houses  were 
Italian,  and  this  commended  itself  to  the  judgment  of  our 
magazine  writer.  He  considered  the  houses  to  be  of  suffi- 
cient "  solidity  and  grandeur  to  satisfy  the  architectural  sen- 
timent of  even  the  exacting  author  of  the  '  Seven  Lamps.'  " 

He   declines   to  believe   that  "  anything  more   compact, 

[185] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

cosy,  comfortable,  and  elegant  in  the  shape  of  a  dwelling- 
house  will  ever  be  invented  than  the  first-class  dwelling- 
house  now  being  built  in  the  upper  part  of  the  city."  Their 
interiors  "  are  of  a  more  elaborate,  showy,  and  generally 
tasteful  character  than  the  exteriors,"  and  "  painted  ceilings, 
gilded  cornices,  and  floors  of  colored  marbles,  or  inlaid  with 
vari-colored  woods,  which  were  once  very  rare,  even  in  the 
houses  of  the  wealthiest  merchants,"  had  then  become  exceed- 
ingly common. 

Our  writer,  however,  with  all  the  praise  he  bestows  upon 
the  contemporary  New  York  residence,  by  no  means  approves 
the  method  of  architectural  imitation  which  prevailed.  He 
wants  an  American  dwelling  to  be  as  original  and  as  thor- 
oughly local  as  an  American  ship.  He  does  not  like  it  that 
the  streets  of  New  York  have  been  filled  "  with  costly  and 
meaningless  copies  of  Greek  porticoes,  of  Gothicized  dwell- 
ings, of  ambitious  imitations  of  baronial  castles,  Egyptian 
tombs,  turreted  churches,  useless  campanile  towers,"  and  the 
like.  "  As  yet,"  he  says,  "  there  is  no  American  architect 
whose  name  is  known  beyond  the  circle  of  his  own  employ- 
ers," and  he  predicts  that  we  must  outgrow  "  our  childish 
dependence  upon  the  Old  World  before  we  shall  be  able  to 
boast  of  our  architects  as  we  boast  of  our  ship-builders." 

This  witness  of  1854  has  been  quoted  at  length  because 
better  testimony  could  not  be  desired  as  to  the  condition  of 
New  York  residential  architecture  in  the  "  fifties,"  and  be- 

[186] 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

cause  he  is  an  amusing  illustration  of  the  prevalent  standards 
of  taste  and  confusion  of  ideas.  The  well-informed  American 
culture  of  the  time — that  of  the  New  England  Renaissance 
— had  no  interest  in  any  art  save  that  of  literature,  and  the 
only  monuments  it  desired  to  rear  were  those  of  the  spirit. 
The  current  movement  of  ideas  in  New  York  was  repre- 
sented on  the  one  side  by  the  languid,  superficial,  regretful 
European  impressionism  of  N.  P.  Willis,  and  on  the  other 
by  the  sturdy  but  formless  democratic  protestantism  of 
Whitman. 

The  writer  in  "  Putnam's  Monthly"  was  measurably  in- 
fluenced by  ideas  from  both  of  these  sources.  Overflowing 
as  he  is  with  the  inevitable  local  and  national  complacency,  he 
is  stimulated  to  place  an  excessive  valuation  upon  everything 
American  which  he  lacks  the  taste  to  disapprove;  and  noth- 
ing could  show  better  both  his  presumption  and  his  igno- 
rance than  his  naive  assertion  that  the  author  of  the  "  Seven 
Lamps  "  would  find  himself  well  suited  with  the  contempo- 
rary methods  of  building  construction.  But  it  is  his  con- 
fusion of  thought  which  is  most  conspicuous  and  which 
plainly  shows  how  much  American  artistic  progress  has 
depended  upon  instinct  and  how  little  upon  criticism.  Al- 
most in  the  same  breath  he  condemns  American  architecture 
for  being  imitative,  and  praises  it  because  it  "  puts  all  prece- 
dent at  defiance  and  sets  at  naught  established  rules."  Per- 
haps the  architecture  of  that  day  did  set  all   precedent  at 

[189] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

defiance;  but  if  so,  it  was  only  because  it  broke  rules  by  a 
sort  of  anarchy  of  imitation. 

We  have  followed  the  transformation  of  the  city  dwelling 
in  New  York  through  several  phases  in  order  to  secure  some 
continuity  in  our  account  of  it;  but  in  so  doing  we  have  left 
unexplained  a  number  of  changes  in  architectural  styles 
implied  by  these  several  modifications  of  the  type  of  metro- 
politan residences.  During  the  years  between  1830  and  1855 
the  classic  revival,  except  as  applied  to  Government  build- 
ings, completely  passed  away.  Its  most  conspicuous  New 
York  survival  in  any  way  connected  with  residential  architec- 
ture is  Colonnade  Row,  in  Lafayette  Place,  which  was  built 
in  1836  from  plans  by  Andrew  Jackson  Davis.  Girard  Col- 
lege, erected  in  Philadelphia  in  1847,  is,  perhaps,  the  last 
building,  not  built  by  the  Government,  which  was  designed 
according  to  rigid  classic  precedents. 

A  different  style  of  architecture  had  come  to  prevail  in 
England,  and  American  builders  soon  followed  it.  Owing 
to  the  influence  of  Ruskin,  and  the  more  careful  study  which 
had  recently  been  made  of  the  Gothic  monuments,  serious 
attempts  were  being  made  to  use  in  England,  both  for  public 
and  private  buildings,  a  modern  version  not  of  the  Gothic 
structural  principles,  but  of  Gothic  architecture  as  a  con- 
sistent group  of  decorative  forms.  Under  any  circumstances 
these  experiments  would  have  had  their  influence  upon 
American  design ;  but  this  influence  was  very  much  intensi- 

[190] 


^ 


THE   TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

fied  by  the  introduction  of  a  comparatively  new  force  into 
American  design. 

We  have  mentioned  the  imported  architects  who  drew 
the  plans  for  American  public  buildings  during  the  first  two 
decades  of  the  century.  This  importation  of  foreign  de- 
signers practically  ceased  throughout  the  two  decades  fol- 
lowing; but  after  1840  young  craftsmen  of  some  technical 
education  again  began  to  "  invade  "  the  United  States,  and, 
like  their  predecessors,  they  brought  with  them  the  latest 
European  Gothic  fashions.  The  two  of  these  men  who 
arrived  earliest  were  Leopold  Eidlitz  and  Richard  M.  Up- 
john, and  their  influence  was  immediately  exerted — particu- 
larly on  ecclesiastical  architecture. 

Hitherto  American  churches,  even  those  of  the  Episco- 
palians, had  been  designed  exclusively  in  some  modification 
of  the  classic  forms  of  Wren  and  Gibbs;  but  between  the 
years  1846  and  1850  Mr.  Eidlitz  designed  St.  George's 
Church  in  Stuyvesant  Square,  New  York  City,  while  in  1846 
Mr.  Upjohn's  Trinity  Church  was  finished.  This  latter 
building,  in  particular,  was  in  a  quiet  sense  revolutionary. 
Ever  since,  Gothic  has  played  a  conspicuous  and  useful  part 
in  American  ecclesiastical  architecture;  but  its  effect  upon 
the  design  of  residences  has  not  been  so  happy. 

Instead  of  copying  those  styles  of  domestic  architecture 
which  came  into  existence  late  in  the  middle  ages  or  early  in 
the  Renaissance,  and  which  contain  the  appropriate  domestic 

[193] 


STATELY  HOMES   IN  AMERICA 

modifications  of  Gothic  forms,  these  first  American  Gothic 
dwellings  were  only  Gothic  in  the  sense  of  having  a  gable 
here  and  there,  and  a  little  ornament  derived  from  Gothic 
churches.  The  whole  movement,  as  applied  to  residences, 
was  even  less  respectable  than  the  classic  revival,  and  was 
perverted  by  a  pernicious  and  irrelevant  notion  that  the 
beautiful  in  nature  and  architecture  was  merely  picturesque. 

But  at  this  period  American  design  was  not  so  narrow- 
minded  as  to  confine  itself  to  any  one  style.  It  was  about 
1855  that  the  fashion  of  indiscriminate  imitation  began.  By 
the  side  of  Gothic  and  classic  residences  the  ''  Italian  villa  " 
was  introduced  as  an  attempt  to  adapt  Renaissance  motives 
to  American  buildings;  and  this  "  Italian  style"  was,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  one  chiefly  adopted  for  the  New  York  brown- 
stone  dwelling. 

Nor  was  this  all.  Having  exhausted  all  the  European 
styles  upon  which  they  could  lay  their  hands,  our  emanci- 
pated fellow  countrymen  scoured  both  the  remote  past  and 
the  mysterious  East  for  novel  and  untried  forms.  We  have 
already  mentioned  the  not  entirely  successful  "  Egyptian  " 
dwelling  erected  by  Mr.  Stevens  in  Barclay  Street;  and  this 
was  matched  by  a  number  of  freakish  structures,  chiefly,  of 
course,  country  houses,  which  were  supposed  to  have  some- 
thing original  and  oriental  about  them.  There  was  an  amus- 
ing book  published  in  1861  by  J.  B.  Lippincott  &  Co.,  called 
"  Homestead  Architecture,"  in  which  the  author,  who  was, 

[194] 


w  E 

13  03 

w  ►^ 

m  O 

d  . 

w  -^ 

^  I 

o 


\^0 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

apparently,  a  practising  architect  in  Philadelphia,  offered  to 
supply  his  readers  with  every  known  variety  of  design.  For 
himself  he  has  no  choice;  he  offers  them  examples  of  "pic- 
turesque Gothic  cottages,"  of  urban  "  Italian  villas,"  of  stately 
classic  mansions,  and  of  bizarre  oriental  pagodas.  There 
are  several  varieties  in  each  of  these  "  styles,"  and  the  selec- 
tion of  one  or  the  other  is  merely  a  matter  of  personal  taste. 
The  spoils  of  the  past  were  laid  at  the  feet  of  the  American 
home-seeker,  and  for  the  early  carpenter's  interpretation  of 
the  Renaissance  was  substituted  a  carpenter's  interpretation 
of  every  kind  of  stone  and  plaster  architecture  that  was  ever 
known. 

The  ambition  to  break  all  precedents  by  means  of  daring 
imitations  could  take  only  one  step  further,  and  that  was  to 
combine  all  or  most  of  these  different  styles  in  one  unique 
building.  In  Mr.  Winston  Churchill's  amusing  novel  of 
"  The  Celebrity,"  a  new  rich  man  describes  his  favorite 
country-seat  in  the  following  words:  "  I  had  all  these  ideas 
I  gathered  knocking  about  the  world,  and  I  gave  them  to 
Willis  of  Philadelphia  to  put  together  for  me.  But  he's 
honest  enough  not  to  claim  the  house.  Take,  for  instance, 
that  minaret  business  on  the  west;  I  picked  that  up  from  a 
mosque  in  Algiers.  The  oriel  just  this  side  is  whole  cloth 
from  Haddon  Hall,  and  the  galleried  porch  next  it  from  a 
Florentine  villa.  The  conical  capped  tower  I  got  from  a 
French  chateau,  and  some  of  the  features  on  the  south  from 

[  199] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

a  Buddhist  temple  in  Japan.  Only  a  little  blending  and 
grouping  was  necessary,  and  Willis  calls  himself  an  archi- 
tect, and  wasn't  equal  to  it.  Now,"  he  added,  "  get  the  effect. 
Did  you  ever  see  another  house  like  it?  " 

To  any  but  an  American  familiar  with  the  ways  of  his 
countrymen  this  would  sound  like  very  wild  satire;  but,  in 
point  of  fact,  combinations  quite  as  incongruous  as  this  have 
frequently  been  made  from  precisely  the  same  motives  that 
Mr.  Churchill's  millionaire  so  comprehensively  yet  so  tersely 
expresses.  For  instance,  a  house  at  Irvington  is  described  as 
"  suggesting  parts  of  the  Elizabethan  cottage,  the  Gothic 
lodge,  and  the  Swiss  chalet " — all  these  ''  suggestions  "  being 
"  materialized  "  in  granite. 

But  perhaps  the  most  amusing  instance  of  the  kind  is  that 
of  "  Armsmear,"  built  by  Colonel  Colt  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Hartford  between  the  years  1855  and  1862.  A  descrip- 
tion of  this  wonderful  building,  which  our  author  calls  ''  a 
characteristic  type  of  the  unique,"  appeared  in  a  number  of 
the  "Art  Journal"  for  1876.  He  says:  "A  long,  grand, 
impressive,  contradicting,  beautiful,  strange  thing — such  is 
the  first  feeling  on  beholding  Armsmear,  an  Italian  villa  in 
stone,  massive  [a  massive  villa?],  noble,  refined,  yet  not  car- 
rying out  any  decided  principles  of  architecture,  it  is  like  the 
mind  of  its  originator,  bold  and  unusual  in  its  combinations." 
"  There  is  no  doubt,"  he  adds,  "  it  is  little  Turkish,  among 
other  things,  on  one  side,  for  it  has  domes,  pinnacles,  and 

[  200] 


Newport     R.    I.  Horace  Trumbauer,   Architect. 

HALL    IN    THE    RESIDENCE    OF    E.    J.    BERWIND. 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

light  lavish  ornamentation,  such  as  oriental  taste  delights 
in."  Nor  was  this  all.  Our  author  adds  a  final  word. 
"  Yet,  although  the  villa  is  Italian  and  cosmopolitan,  the 
feeling  is  English.  It  is  an  English  home  in  its  substantial- 
ity, its  home-like  and  comfortable  aspect." 

These  descriptions  of  houses  built  during  the  period  with 
which  we  are  dealing  are  a  sufficient  indication  that  Mr. 
Churchill's  satirical  mansion  is  one  of  a  type  which,  while 
they  are  not  numerous,  are  significant.  They  are  result  of 
a  diflferent  set  of  influences  from  the  wooden  Parthenons  or 
the  picturesque  Gothic  villas.  The  classic  and  Gothic  re- 
vivals, however,  incongruous  as  were  their  effects  upon 
American  residences,  originated  after  all  among  instructed 
architects,  and  had  behind  them  the  weight  of  well-informed 
opinion.  They  were  designed  in  that  way  not  because  their 
owners  had  any  preference  for  that  sort  of  thing,  but  because 
that  was  the  safe  and  fashionable  sort  of  thing  to  do. 

But  houses  such  as  "  Mohair  "  and  "  Armsmear  "  have 
an  entirely  different  origin.  They  derive,  not  from  a  well- 
informed  architectural  opinion,  but  from  the  "  ideas  "  which 
some  rich  man  has  gathered  when  "  knocking  around  the 
world."  The  ideas,  that  is,  instead  of  being  imported,  are 
the  outcome  of  the  foreign  travel,  which  at  this  period  began 
to  increase  rapidly,  and  they  were  put  together  with  the  novel 
notion  that  the  best  way  to  break  precedents  was  to  convert 
them  into  a  hodge-podge. 

[203] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

Yet,  after  all,  the  people  who  erect  such  houses  have  the 
merit  of  some  mental  independence.  Like  our  contempo- 
rary millionaires  they  want  their  houses  to  be  effective  and 
unique;  but  they  have  gone  ahead  and  tried  to  make  them  so 
without  the  assistance  of  the  architect,  Willis  of  Philadel- 
phia. Our  contemporary  millionaire  has  the  assistance  of 
his  Willis,  but  his  instinct  is  the  same.  He  wants  his  house 
to  be  reminiscent  of  the  things  he  has  liked  in  Europe;  he 
wants  it  to  be  impressive  and  magnificent;  he  wants  people 
to  say:  "  Did  you  ever  see  another  house  like  it?  "  And  his 
architect,  Willis  of  Philadelphia,  shows  him  how. 

It  should  be  insisted,  therefore,  that  crude  as  were  these 
*'  grand,  impressive,  contradicting,  beautiful,  strange  dwell- 
ings," such  as  "  Armsmear,"  they  had  a  wholesome  aspect  to 
them.  They  were  altogether  ridiculous;  they  had  nothing 
really  original  about  them,  except  that  they  outraged  all 
architectural  proprieties;  they  were  based  upon  the  childish 
notion  that  positive  originality  can  be  obtained  merely  by 
breaking  precedents;  but  at  least  they  were  no  longer  colo- 
nial. They  were  not  a  reproduction  of  the  kind  of  dwelling 
which  was  fashionable  at  that  time  in  England;  but  they 
were  the  first  wild  beginning  of  that  gradual  process  of  local 
experimentation  with  European  forms  which  is  the  one 
method  whereby  any  local  types  of  building  can  be  wrought. 
It  was,  that  is,  the  beginning  of  our  American  architectural 
education — a  process  which  even  at  the  present  day  has  not 

[204] 


Newport,  R.  I.  Horace  Trumbauer,  Architect. 

STAIRWAY    IN    THE    RESIDENCE    OF    E.    J.    BERWIND. 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  DWELLING 

gone  very  far,  but  which  is  the  excuse  and  the  explanation 
for  much  in  American  building  that  is  otherwise  inexcusable 
and  inexplicable. 


[207] 


THE    BEGINNINGS   OF   THE   GREATER 
MODERN    RESIDENCE 


CHAPTER  V 
Ci^e  I5e8mntng0  of  ti^e  c^reatet:  j^oDern  EejSfDence 

HE  years  between  1865  and  1885  may  be 
described  both  as  the  ending  of  the  mid- 
dle period  of  American  residences  and  the 
beginning  of  the  modern  period.  During 
the  first  decade  the  old  influences  con- 
tinued on  the  whole  to  dominate  the  architectural  situation. 
During  the  second  decade  some  of  the  newer  conditions  and 
ideas  had  begun  to  make  a  noticeable  impression.  At  the 
outset  the  ornamental  woodwork,  which  the  American  car- 
penter continued  to  "  commit,"  was  ugly  and  distorted  almost 
beyond  belief.  The  designs  of  the  exteriors  of  country  houses 
were  derived  by  a  process  of  indiscriminate  imitation  from 
all  parts  of  the  world;  the  designs  of  city  houses  were  domi- 
nated by  a  stupid  routine  in  Philadelphia  and  Boston,  as  well 
as  in  New  York;  and  the  routine  of  the  first  two  cities  was 
better  than  that  of  the  metropolis  only  because  the  brick 
was  a  comparatively  modest  and  safe  material.  The  interior 
of  these  houses  continued  to  be  on  the  whole  "  English  "  and 
home-like,  but  only  in  the  sense  of  being  dull,  heavy,  com- 

[211] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

fortable,  respectable,  and  dreary.  If  they  ceased  to  be  re- 
spectable and  dull  it  was  by  becoming  gaudy  and  ostentatious. 
For  a  good  deal  of  the  time  some  heavy  mahogany  lingered 
on  in  the  drawing-rooms;  but  toward  the  end  of  it  the  ma- 
chine-made furniture  began  to  invade  the  cheaper  houses,  and 
many  of  the  interiors  ceased  even  to  be  respectable. 

But  while  the  average  dwelling  erected  was  perhaps  in 
the  beginning  more  rather  than  less  vulgar,  a  different  set  of 
social,  economic,  and  aesthetic  conditions  were  coming  to 
have  an  effect  upon  American  life.  During  these  years  we 
can  trace  the  origin  of  all  those  forces,  which  we  have  de- 
scribed in  the  introduction,  as  explaining  the  peculiar  char- 
acter of  the  greater  residences  of  to-day.  Just  as  the  period 
of  the  pioneer  began  with  the  settlement  of  Kentucky  and 
Tennessee  a  generation  before  the  colonial  architectural  tra- 
dition disappeared,  so  the  evidences  of  comparative  economic 
maturity  may  be  noted,  while  the  distinctive  outlines  of  a 
pioneering  spirit  still,  on  the  whole,  overshadowed  the  eco- 
nomic and  social  landscape.  The  distinctive  mark  of  this 
period  of  the  pioneer  was,  from  our  point  of  view,  the  pe- 
culiar value  which  was  placed  upon  the  man  who  was  useful 
in  all  sorts  of  ways. 

The  country  at  this  stage  of  its  growth  could  not,  except 
in  certain  directions,  afford  skilled  labor;  it  could  not  afford 
to  give  men  the  time  and  the  training  needed  to  make  them 
experts    in    any   one    direction.      The    exceptions    were,    of 

[212] 


THE  GREATER  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

course,  politics  and  the  learned  professions.  The  physician, 
the  clergyman,  and  the  lawyer  were  necessarily  better  trained 
than  the  business  man,  the  mechanic,  or  the  architect.  The 
colleges,  indeed,  were  devoted  to  turning  out,  not  men  of 
culture,  but  clerics  and  lawyers,  because  during  this  period 
of  the  pioneer,  religion,  politics,  and  litigation  were  of  even 
greater  social  importance  than  they  are  to-day.  But,  on  the 
whole,  all  economic  and  social  conditions  tended  to  keep  the 
average  American  down  to  an  average  level,  to  make  him 
very  much  like  his  neighbor  in  tastes,  wealth,  abilities,  and 
acquirement. 

The  whole  country  was  swept  along  by  a  tide  of  irresist- 
ible economic  expansion,  which  molded  men  into  similar 
shapes.  Owing  to  the  fact  that  the  nation  was  politically  as 
well  as  economically  an  experiment,  and  had  such  a  grave 
political  problem  as  slavery  to  settle,  the  average  American 
was  as  much  of  a  politician  as  he  was  a  business  man  and  real 
estate  speculator,  but  the  characteristic  tone  of  the  country, 
as  remarked  by  De  Tocqueville,  was  that  of  a  commonplace 
level  of  achievement,  ambition,  appearance,  and  habits  of 
mind.  There  were  great  statesmen,  great  inventors,  great 
lawyers,  and  in  New  England  even  great  clergymen  and  men 
of  letters;  but  there  were  few  great  fortunes,  there  were  no 
great  architects  or  artists,  and  there  was  very  little  distinction 
of  manner,  training,  or  thought  or  ambition  among  the  great 

mass  of  Americans. 

[217] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

After  the  Civil  War  new  characteristics  began  to  appear. 
The  problem  of  slavery  was  settled,  even  if  the  problem  of 
the  negro  remained.  Politics  became  less  absorbing;  busi- 
ness became  more  so;  and  politics  became  increasingly  occu- 
pied with  business  questions.  The  greater  and  better  part 
of  the  country's  energy  was,  perhaps,  still  engaged  in  the 
pioneering  work  of  preparing  the  Far  West  for  human  habi- 
tation, but  whereas  the  Middle  West  had  been  opened  up 
chiefly  by  means  of  roads  and  watercourses,  the  Far  West 
was  opened  up  by  means  of  railroad. 

The  railroad  was  a  fertile  source  of  distinctions.  It  de- 
manded scientific  knowledge,  expert  labor,  long  and  arduous 
industrial  training,  and  a  talent  for  industrial  organization. 
From  the  very  start  it  exercised  a  formative  influence  upon 
business  conditions.  It  was  the  beginning  of  the  organiza- 
tion of  American  industry  on  a  national  scale;  and  it  was  as 
the  result  of  such  an  organization  that  the  great  American 
fortunes  were  produced.  M^ny  of  them  originated  in  the 
years  immediately  succeeding  the  war.  Until  that  period 
wealthy  Americans  derived  their  money  for  the  most  part 
from  commerce. 

Like  their  colonial  predecessors  they  were  generally  mer- 
chants. Money  made  in  trade  was  frequently  invested  in 
real  estate;  and,  particularly  in  New  York,  some  very  large 
fortunes  were  gathered  in  this  manner.  In  New  England 
there  were  many  wealthy  manufacturers,  but  manufacturing 

[218] 


THE  GREATER  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

had  not  become  a  very  prevalent  source  of  wealth.  Except 
in  the  case  of  John  Jacob  Astor  and  a  few  others,  the  fortunes 
that  preceded  the  Civil  War  were  not  very  large.  As  in 
Europe,  the  amount  of  wealth  that  had  been  accumulated  had 
not  run  much  ahead  of  its  possessor's  opportunity  of  spend- 
ing his  income.  After  the  war,  however,  the  character  of 
American  wealth  changed,  both  in  respect  to  its  size  and  in 
respect  to  its  origin.  Of  course  there  were  still  well-to-do 
merchants,  but  they  were  dwarfed  by  the  new  men. 

The  railroad  fortunes  began  to  be  conspicuous.  The 
New  York  Central  Railroad  and  the  Harlem  Railroad 
started  the  Vanderbilt  accumulations;  Jay  Gould  found  a 
ready  road  to  wealth  by  the  making  and  breaking  of  such 
railroad  systems  as  the  Erie  and  the  Wabash.  The  building 
of  the  Pennsylvania  made  many  rich  men  in  Philadelphia; 
some  of  the  Western  roads,  as  many  more  in  Boston.  Round 
about  1870  the  Standard  Oil  Company  began  its  career,  and 
not  only  suggested  the  idea  of  similar  organizations,  but  has 
been  the  immediate  source  of  more  large  American  fortunes 
than  has  any  other  corporation — railroad  or  industrial. 

At  the  same  time  the  steel  manufacturing  business  was 
being  founded,  and  during  the  next  twenty  years  increased 
with  extraordinary  rapidity  and  left  many  a  millionaire  be- 
sides Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie  stranded  by  the  way.  The  for- 
tune of  Mr.  A.  T.  Stewart,  which  was  one  of  the  largest  of 
the  period,  and  which  was  one  of  the  few  big  American 

[221  ] 


STATELY   HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

fortunes  which  has,  up  to  this  time,  been  dissipated,  was  de- 
rived from  wholesale  and  retail  trade;  but  this  was  an 
exception,  its  only  parallel  being,  so  far  as  we  know,  the 
fortune  of  Mr.  Marshall  Field  of  Chicago.  For  the  most 
part  the  largest  accumulations  of  wealth  in  this  country 
have  been  derived  from  some  form  of  interstate  or  national 
industrial  organization  or  from  the  exploitation  of  some 
natural  monopoly. 

Later  we  shall  consider  more  in  detail  what  the  social 
and  economic  effect  has  been  of  wealth  which  was  accumu- 
lated by  these  means;  but  for  the  present  we  wish  merely  to 
point  out  that  here  was  a  new  fact  of  the  utmost  social  and 
economic  importance  which  was  destined  to  introduce  all 
sorts  of  novel  distinctions  into  American  life.  Evidently 
these  new  industrial  organizations  could  not  perform  their 
peculiar  tasks  with  the  comparatively  crude  machinery  and 
equipment  which  had  sufficed  in  the  past.  They  needed 
well-trained  and  efficient  engines  of  all  kinds,  and  the  char- 
acter of  American  training  in  all  technical  branches  conse- 
quently began  to  improve  during  the  years  immediately  suc- 
ceeding the  Civil  War. 

Of  course  we  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  these  new  rich 
men  were  the  only  social  force  making  for  a  more  definite 
organization  of  American  technical  work.  Specialization 
was  bound  in  any  case  to  come  as  the  result  of  comparative 
economic  maturity,  but  since  the  new  millionaires  were  the 

[  222  ] 


..A  I 


•^^v- 


.a 


^r^\ 


THE   GREATER  MODERN   RESIDENCE 

most  conspicuous  agents  and  products  of  this  process  of  eco- 
nomic development,  they  unquestionably  did  a  great  deal 
during  these  twenty  years  to  improve  the  training  and  equip- 
ment of  the  American  engineer,  craftsman,  and  mechanic. 

The  day  of  the  comparatively  well-instructed  architect 
was  beginning.  We  have  already  noticed  how,  as  early  as 
1845,  men  like  Leopold  Eidlitz  and  R.  M.  Upjohn  were 
practising  in  New  York.  From  the  start  the  studios  of 
these  capable  and  energetic  designers  became  the  training- 
places  of  many  young  craftsmen  who  were  ambitious  and 
who  appreciated  that  American  architecture  was  very  much 
in  need  of  a  higher  standard  of  practise.  In  a  few  years 
many  of  these  younger  men  graduated  from  the  workshops 
of  their  masters  and  set  out  themselves  to  carry  on  the 
good  work. 

The  consequence  was  that,  what  with  architects  such  as 
Upjohn  and  Eidlitz,  their  pupils,  and  a  number  of  recruits 
who  had  arrived  from  Europe,  there  was  by  the  time  the 
country  began  to  recover  economically  from  the  effect  of  the 
war,  a  very  respectable  group  of  comparatively  well-trained 
architects  practising  in  New  York  and  the  other  large  East- 
ern cities.  Among  the  New  Yorkers  may  be  mentioned 
Detlef  Lienau,  J.  Wrey  Mould,  Calvert  Vaux,  D.  D.  With- 
ers, E.  H.  Kendall,  P.  B.  Wight,  Russell  Sturgis,  George  B. 
Post,  and  Richard  M.  Hunt. 

The  foregoing  list  is  not,  of  course,  by  any  means  ex- 

[227] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

haustive,  and  is  given  merely  as  an  illustration  of  the  rapid 
multiplication  of  competent  designers.  Nearly  all  of  these 
gentlemen  were  more  or  less  under  the  influence  of  the 
Gothic  tradition,  which  still  dominated  English  practise. 
Even  Richard  M.  Hunt,  who  originally  set  up  his  studio  in 
1855,  ^^^  who  was,  we  believe,  the  first  American  architect 
to  be  trained  at  the  Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts — even  Mr.  Hunt 
was  for  many  years  a  designer  chiefly  of  Gothicized  buildings. 
This  Gothic  tradition  infected,  however,  only  the  better 
American  architects.  The  bulk  of  the  work  was  of  the  dull, 
mechanical,  nondescript  Renaissance  type,  which  received 
its  most  tiresome  and  pretentious  expression  in  the  designs  of 
John  Kellum  and  Griffith  Thomas.  The  Park  National 
Bank  building  on  lower  Broadway  is  a  conspicuous  relic  of 
this  decadent  style,  while  it  so  happens  that  among  the  resi- 
dences the  great  show-house  and  the  architectural  wonder  of 
the  period — Mr.  A.  T.  Stewart's  mansion  at  the  corner  of 
Thirty-fourth  Street  and  Fifth  Avenue — was  designed  under 
this  same  influence.  One  great  distinction,  however,  be- 
tween these  years  and  those  which  succeeded  them  was  the 
persistent  force  of  English  esthetic  ideas.  Ever  since  the 
beginning  of  the  century  Americans  had  been  borrowing  a 
good  deal  from  France  in  the  way  of  wall-papers,  bric-a- 
brac,  and  objects  of  art,  and  from  1840  down  they  were 
becoming  cosmopolitan  in  many  respects;  but  their  instinc- 
tive esthetic  sympathies  remained  English.     They  preferred 

[  228  ] 


a 

< 


THE  GREATER  MODERN   RESIDENCE 

pictures  which  told  a  story  or  carried  a  message,  and  their 
architectural  standards  were  more  influenced  by  associa- 
tions, or  by  some  appeal  to  their  sense  of  the  quaint  and 
the  picturesque,  than  they  were  by  the  severer  technical 
proprieties  and  merits.  These  preferences  persist  in  the 
popular  mind  until  the  present  day;  but  they  have  almost 
wholly  disappeared  among  Americans  who  practise  and 
criticize  the  arts. 

The  brownstone  dwellings  on  Fifth  Avenue  from  Four- 
teenth Street  north  belong  for  the  most  part  to  these  years. 
The  majority  of  them  were  built  in  rows  by  speculative 
builders,  but  sometimes  on  the  corners,  and  even  in  the 
middle  of  the  block,  they  were  built  from  special  designs. 
Even  when  they  were  the  work  of  some  of  the  better  archi- 
tects mentioned  above,  it  was  a  very  rare  thing  for  any 
material  other  than  brownstone  to  be  used.  Here  again 
the  principal  exception  was  Mr.  Stewart's  marble  palace, 
although  occasionally  a  combination  of  brick  and  freestone 
was  slipped  quietly  in,  as  in  the  old  Astor  residences  on 
Thirty-third  and  Thirty-fourth  Streets.  On  the  whole,  how- 
ever, there  is  very  little  to  be  said  about  the  exterior  of  these 
buildings.  The  revolution  was  taking  place  more  upon  the 
inside  than  upon  the  outside,  and  a  very  wonderful  revolu- 
tion if  was,  but  one  that  is  not  easy  to  trace.  The  different 
i^uences  are  so  complex  that  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  dis- 
entangle and  give  them  their  proper  value  and  sequence. 

[231] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

The  interior  of  the  typical  urban  residence  in  this  coun- 
try reached  its  lowest  point  in  the  years  immediately  after 
the  Civil  War.  Since  then  it  has  slowly  improved,  until  at 
the  present  time  the  greater  residences  are  much  more  re- 
markable for  their  interior  decorations  than  for  their  exterior 
design.  The  architects  whom  we  have  mentioned  above 
gave  the  character  to  the  first  movement  toward  better  things. 
These  gentlemen  could  not  improve  the  taste  of  their  clients, 
for  good  taste  is  a  social  product  of  slow  growth;  but  they 
could  and  did  give  currency  to  better  ideas.  They  tried  to 
substitute  a  certain  sincerity  of  style  for  the  erratic,  miscel- 
laneous, and  tortuous  vulgarity  which  then  prevailed;  and 
the  style  they  preferred  was  the  equivalent,  so  far  as  the  in- 
terior of  a  house  was  concerned,  of  their  Gothicized  exteriors. 

The  task  was  the  easier  because  the  corresponding  forms 
had  already  been  given  some  popularity  by  an  Englishman, 
Mr.  Charles  Eastlake.  This  gentleman,  who  was  a  disciple 
of  Ruskin,  and  who  was  moved  to  attempt  a  reform  of  the 
equally  vulgar  household  trappings  of  early  Victorian  Eng- 
land, wanted  to  substitute  some  individuality  for  the  dull 
prevailing  conventions,  and  infuse  simplicity  and  sincerity 
into  the  prevailing  forms.  He  obtained  for  a  while  a  very 
considerable  following  both  in  England  and  in  this  country, 
and  accomplished  a  great  deal  by  way  of  stirring  the  con- 
science of  well-to-do  people  to  the  need  of  better  things. 
During  the  "  seventies  "  a  large  proportion  of  the  handsome 

[232] 


o 

h 

w 
o 

< 

H 

w 

w 
K 


THE  GREATER  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

New  York  interiors  became  Eastlakian  in  design;  and  under 
the  influence  of  his  ideas  decorative  art  societies  were  estab- 
lished in  many  of  the  Western  as  well  as  of  the  Eastern  cities. 

His  reform,  however,  must  be  judged  rather  by  its  inten- 
tion than  its  result.  As  we  turn  over  the  reproductions  of 
some  of  the  woodwork  which  these  societies  sent  to  the 
Centennial  Exhibition  of  1876  in  Philadelphia,  under  the 
naive  conviction  that  they  had  wrought  something  most  sim- 
ple and  shapely,  it  is  very  difficult  to  imagine  that  anybody 
could  have  created  these  ill-proportioned  and  uneasy  forms 
with  any  such  illusion  in  his  head;  but  the  Eastlakians,  like 
so  many  other  esthetic  reformers,  had  more  ideas  than  taste, 
and  even  their  ideas  were  limited. 

Some  of  the  results  in  this  city  and  country  were  gro- 
tesque beyond  measure.  We  have  before  us,  for  instance,  the 
reproductions  of  a  very  large  and  expensive  New  York  house 
of  the  "  seventies  "  in  which  these  ideas  prevailed.  "  The 
very  door,"  says  an  enthusiastic  commentator  in  an  art  peri- 
odical of  that  time — "  the  very  door  is  Eastlakian  and  orig- 
inal. For  the  Eastlake  style  admits  of  indescribable  variety; 
it  has  no  pattern  regularity,  so  that,  if  you  are  but  quaint, 
original,  and  sincere,  you  may  be  as  varied  as  you  please." 
The  designer  "  spread  "  himself  on  the  library,  which  was 
nothing  if  not  original  and  fancy-free.  The  woodwork  at 
every  corner  and  projection  exploded  into  lion-headed  gar- 
goyles, while  at  the  same  time  structurally  it  was  shapeless, 

[235] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

heavy,  and  uncouth.  Dr.  Charles  Waldstein  has  recently 
made  the  statement  that  the  first  intimations  of  the  modern 
style  in  interior  decoration  (the  so-called  Art  Noveau)  were 
to  be  observed  at  our  Centennial  Exhibition;  and  after  ex- 
amining a  good  many  samples  of  Eastlakian  woodwork  we 
can  almost  believe  it. 

It  is  very  well  for  Europeans,  who  have  every  chance  to 
acquire  or  develop  an  instinctive  sense  of  form  to  experiment 
with  novelties  of  this  kind;  but  a  new  country,  without  es- 
thetic traditions  and  with  no  domesticated  styles,  must  pro- 
ceed more  cautiously.  The  Eastlake  movement  was  useful 
just  as  any  sincere  and  timely  attempt  at  esthetic  reform  is 
useful ;  but  it  was  distinctly  only  an  episode  in  the  story  of 
the  American  esthetic  revival.  The  chief  legend  runs  in 
different  words.  Our  esthetic  conservatism  soon  resumed  its 
sway,  and  all  the  more  so  because  the  influences  which  were 
mentioned  at  the  end  of  the  last  chapter  were  becoming  more 
than  ever  powerful. 

If  Americans  were  not  gaining  much  in  originality,  they 
were  at  least  gaining  in  initiative.  Instead  of  copying  the 
latest  European  architectural  fashion,  they  were  beginning 
to  copy  forms,  which  in  their  opinion  they  had  some  good 
reason  to  copy.  They  were  beginning,  that  is,  to  select;  and 
this  showed  a  most  significant  degree  of  emancipation.  The 
Eastlakian  reform  was  the  last  English  or  European  esthetic 
fashion,  except  the  Queen  Anne,  which  we  imported,  for  the 

[236] 


THE  GREATER  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

school  of  William  Morris  had  very  little  influence  on  this 
side  of  the  water,  and  the  recent  exhibitions  of  the  "  Jugend 
Style,"  or  "  Art  Nouveau,"  have  so  far  been  practically  ig- 
nored. The  current  popularity  of  certain  academic  French 
forms  might  seem  to  belie  this  statement;  but,  as  we  shall 
see  presently,  we  do  not  believe  that  it  does.  The  young 
Americans  who  have  been  fetching  to  this  country  the  results 
of  their  training  at  the  Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts  are  really 
importing  not  a  fashion,  or  even  a  style,  but  a  technical 
method  and  a  tradition. 

In  connection  with  this  matter,  also,  it  is  interesting  to 
note  that  just  about  this  time  the  Eastlakian  reform  had 
spent  its  force  American  architecture  made  its  first  original 
experiment  in  the  use  of  European  models.  The  Roman- 
esque revival,  which  began  in  1877  with  the  completion  of 
Trinity  Church  in  Boston,  was  intruded  into  the  situation 
by  force  of  the  extraordinary  personal  originality  and  energy 
of  Mr.  H.  H.  Richardson.  The  new  style  did  not  attain 
any  marked  ascendency  until  some  years  later;  but  it  was 
the  most  conspicuous  fact  in  American  architectural  prac- 
tise from  1885  until  1892. 

This  revival  would  be  much  more  important  in  an  ac- 
count of  the  general  development  of  our  local  architecture 
than  in  an  account  of  the  changes  in  American  residential 
design,  because,  except  in  the  West,  there  were  few  dwell- 
ings designed  therein  and  because  it  had  no  effect  at  all 

[241  ] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

Upon  interior  decoration;  but  its  importance  in  stimulat- 
ing an  increase  in  initiative  by  American  architects  can 
scarcely  be  overestimated.  It  is  true  that  the  revival  scarcely 
outlived  the  revivalist,  and  it  is  true  that  his  imitators 
showed  precious  little  discretion  in  adapting  Romanesque 
forms  to  the  design  of  dwellings;  but  the  movement,  in 
addition  to  a  number  of  notable  achievements  by  its  orig- 
inator, assuredly  gave  excellent  promise  of  better  American 
architectural  habit. 

In  the  meantime  the  greater  residences  were  being  modi- 
fied in  a  very  different  direction.  The  owners  of  large 
dwellings,  as  well  as  their  architects,  were  finding  reasons 
for  making  selections.  They  werd  getting  an  esthetic  expe- 
rience of  their  own.  With  the  increase  in  wealth,  and  with 
the  improvement  in  the  transatlantic  service,  European  travel 
became  more  than  an  occasional  luxury;  it  became  a  pastime, 
a  habit,  a  passion,  and  even  a  weakness.  Beginning  as  mere 
sightseers,  the  rich  became  increasingly  at  home  in  Europe. 
They  visited  many  of  the  great  European  mansions  and 
estates,  and  had  their  ideas  of  domestic  magnificence  corre- 
spondingly enlarged. 

During  the  same  years  American  artists  were  flocking  to 
Paris  in  ever  larger  numbers,  and  American  scholars  to  Ger- 
many. For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  country 
French  esthetic  traditions  and  standards  began  to  dominate 
American  painting  and  sculpture.     The  Society  of  Ameri- 

[242] 


THE  GREATER  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

can  Artists  superseded  the  old  Academy  of  Design  as  the 
representative  American  art  association.  More  than  ever 
before,  also,  impressionable  people  went  abroad,  not  merely 
for  diversion  or  study,  but  from  a  sort  of  craving  for  spir- 
itual enlightenment — out  of  the  conviction  that  without  a 
glimpse  of  the  wider  European  horizon  an  American's  intel- 
lectual growth  necessarily  remains  narrow  and  stunted.  The 
earlier  books  of  Henry  James,  which  date  from  the  seventies, 
are  full  of  "  passionate  pilgrims "  who  are  discovering  Eu- 
rope for  themselves,  and  who  are  cherishing  these  European 
impressions  as  the  most  precious  and  inspiring  influence  in 
their  intellectual  development.  Of  course  they  returned  to 
this  country  with  their  imaginations  steeped  in  their  Euro- 
pean experiences  and  almost  as  incapable  of  getting  away 
from  them  as  a  child  is  from  his  ancestral  instincts. 

As  a  natural  consequence  of  their  edifying  travels,  rich 
Americans  began  to  collect  old  European  furniture,  fabrics, 
mantelpieces,  tapestries,  silver,  and  china.  At  first  the  pur- 
chases were  made  indiscriminately  and  without  very  much 
judgment,  and  the  articles  were  carted  to  this  country  and 
bundled  into  rooms  without  any  sense  of  their  proper  deco- 
rative value. 

But  the  rich  American,  while  generous  and  willing  to 
pay  for  a  good  thing,  wants  also  to  have  some  assurance  that 
the  thing  is  good.  If,  as  is  generally  the  case,  he  does  not 
possess  the  requisite  knowledge  and  taste  himself,  he  is  ready 

[  247  ] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

and  willing  to  buy  the  judgment  of  other  people.  Some  of 
the  collectors,  getting  interested  in  their  task,  began  to  em- 
ploy agents  on  the  other  side,  while  it  did  not  take  very  long 
for  other  agents  to  make  a  regular  business  of  importing 
rare  and  genuine  antiquities  from  Italy,  France,  England, 
and  even  Spain.  At  the  same  time,  of  course,  the  work  of 
copying  genuine  pieces,  so  that  very  much  the  effect  of  the 
original  was  obtained,  was  raised  to  the  dignity  of  a  handi- 
craft. The  whole  business  soon  became  very  completely 
organized,  and  thorough-going  and  comprehensive  measures 
were  taken  to  collect  these  relics  and  spoils  of  the  domestic 
past  of  Europe  for  the  American  market. 

The  next  step  soon  followed.  It  naturally  occurred  to 
the  importers  of  these  beautiful  and  rare  European  antiqui- 
ties that  the  best  way  to  use  them  was  to  give  them  their 
proper  value  by  grouping  them  together  in  certain  rooms; 
and  consequently  toward  the  end  of  the  "  seventies "  this 
began  to  be  done.  The  most  notable  example  of  this  phase 
of  the  growth  of  the  modern  residence  was  the  house  of  the 
late  Mr.  Henry  G.  Marquand.  He  was,  indeed,  peculiarly 
a  collector,  and  he  always  tended  to  make  his  residence  more 
of  a  museum  than  the  strictly  domestic  proprieties  would 
admit,  but  he  had  rooms  designed  in  certain  styles,  of  which 
his  Japanese  room  was  the  most  famous;  and  in  these  rooms 
his  extraordinary  collection  of  rugs,  tapestries,  china,  and  the 
like   were   arranged.     The   pieces   were   brought,    however, 

[248] 


THE   GREATER  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

rather  with  an  eye  to  their  intrinsic  value  than  to  their  place 
in  a  decorative  scheme,  and  little  or  no  unity  of  effect  was 
sought  among  different  apartments. 

The  Japanese  rooms,  for  instance,  which  were  so  popu- 
lar just  at  that  time,  were  plainly  the  issue  of  a  collector's 
point  of  view.  They  were  the  creation  of  men  who  were 
looking  for  curiosities,  rather  than  that  of  men  who  had  the 
primary  purpose  in  their  minds  of  putting  together  a  series 
of  beautiful  and  appropriate  rooms.  It  is  about  this  same 
time  that  also  the  rich  men  became  ready  to  spend  money 
lavishly  upon  their  dwellings.  The  social  ideal  of  mere 
respectability,  which  had  prevailed  so  long,  began  to  yield 
to  the  temptations  and  opportunities  of  great  wealth.  The 
American  millionaire  for  the  first  time  sought  to  make  a  big, 
brave,  handsome  show. 

Writing  about  American  dwellings  in  1879  ^^-  A.  J. 
Bloor  remarks  that  "  our  merchant  princes,  our  large  manu- 
facturers, our  money-coining  miners,  railway  magnates,  and 
financiers  of  all  kinds  are  much  more  disposed  to  emulate 
the  expenditures  of  the  Medici  of  the  old  Italian  republics 
than  to  conform  to  the  habits  of  their  thrifty  forefathers." 
They  were  no  longer  satisfied  with  a  dwelling  differing 
from  those  of  less  favored  people  merely  in  the  size  of  the 
rooms  and  the  miscellaneous  abundance  of  its  furniture. 
They  began  to  want  a  kind  of  habitation  which,  like  Arms- 
mear,  was  a  "  characteristic  type  of  the  unique  " — but  this 

[25'] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

distinction  was  to  be  obtained  not  by  making  it  an  architec- 
tural department  store,  but  by  a  sort  of  lavish,  ostentatious, 
and  magnificent  excellence. 

Two  conspicuous  examples  of  this  kind  of  habitation 
were  erected  before  1880  in  New  York  City — the  old  Stew- 
art mansion  at  Thirty-fourth  Street  and  Fifth  Avenue  and 
the  first  Vanderbilt  houses  on  the  west  side  of  Fifth  Avenue 
between  Fifty-first  and  Fifty-second  Streets;  and  it  is  strik- 
ing testimony  to  the  rapid  shifting  of  building  conditions 
and  esthetic  standards  in  New  York  that  the  first  of  these 
has  already  been  replaced  by  ofiice-buildings,  while  the  sec- 
ond has  been  undergoing  a  process  of  reconstruction  and 
renovation. 

In  the  case  of  the  old  Stewart  mansion,  the  "  palatial  " 
idea  made  an  early  and  obvious  appearance.  The  location, 
the  character  of  the  design,  the  choice  of  the  material,  every- 
thing about  the  house,  inside  and  out,  showed  that  the  old 
Irish  merchant  wanted  to  make  a  grand  impression;  and  he 
undoubtedly  succeeded  in  doing  so — upon  his  contempora- 
ries. But  the  time  had  not  come  when  this  grand  impres- 
sion could  be  made  by  adequate  means.  The  architect  which 
Mr.  Stewart  employed  could  design  only  in  a  florid  and 
tasteless  Renaissance  manner;  while  in  the  interior  the  use 
of  expensive  materials,  the  profusion  of  marble  statues,  and 
the  intrusion  of  grand  stairways  can  not  disguise  the  fact  that 
it  is  merely  an  over-blown  example  of  a  New  York  interior 

[252] 


THE  GREATER  MODERN   RESIDENCE 

of  the  dark  Middle  Age.  The  detail  of  cornice  and  col- 
umn is  the  same;  although  there  were  some  few  good 
pieces,  the  stuffy  upholstered  furniture  creates  the  same 
effect  of  being  always  in  the  way  and  out  of  place;  there 
was  the  same  devotion  to  bric-a-brac  and  statues  on  pedes- 
tals; and,  in  spite  of  the  manifest  attempt  to  get  away  from 
it,  the  atmosphere  of  the  house  bespoke  merely  the  rich 
bourgeois. 

The  two  brownstone  houses  which  Mr.  William  H. 
Vanderbilt  began  to  build  on  Fifth  Avenue  between  Fifty- 
first  and  Fifty-second  Streets  in  1879  make,  perhaps,  the  best 
transition  of  all  between  the  old  residence  and  the  new.  Its 
scale,  its  design,its  plan,  and  its  cost — all  testify  to  the  grow- 
ing desire  for  ostentatious  magnificence;  and  while  the  re- 
sults fall  very  far  short  of  contemporary  buildings  of  the 
same  kind,  they  indicate  a  considerable  advance  over  the 
earlier  Stewart  mansion. 

The  design  of  the  exterior,  indeed,  is  very  far  from  being 
either  coherent  or  interesting;  and  the  material  selected,  the 
old  smooth  brownstone,  indicates  a  blind  ignorance  of  the 
drift  of  American  architectural  advance;  but  the  interior, 
while  not  without  occasional  symptoms  of  an  amusing  home- 
liness, indicated  a  much  more  advanced  appreciation  of  the 
kind  of  materials  which  must  be  used  in  order  to  obtain  the 
kind  of  effect  desired.  The  contract  for  the  interior  deco- 
rations had  been  let  to  a  firm  of  decorators,  and  called,  so 

[  2S5  ] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

it  was  Stated  at  the  time,  for  the  expenditure  of  $800,000 — 
an  unprecedented  sum  for  the  purpose. 

The  manifest  intention  of  the  decorators  was  both  to 
secure  some  unity  of  design  and  to  give  Mr.  Vanderbilt  his 
full  money's  worth  in  the  way  of  gorgeous  trappings;  and 
if  the  result  is  without  either  distinction  or  any  propriety  of 
effect,  such  crudity  was  to  be  expected  at  this  early  stage  of 
the  movement.  It  takes  long  training  to  handle  these  old 
materials  even  correctly;  it  needs  both  experience  and  talent 
to  handle  them  with  any  real  sense  for  their  best  effects; 
and  if  such  effects  have  ever  been  reached  in  rooms  which 
were  left  exclusively  in  the  hands  of  professional  interior 
decorators  we  have  yet  to  find  the  instance.  Interiors  which 
have  been  turned  over  entirely  to  them  generally  suggest 
either  a  furniture  shop  or  a  sample  design.  To  perform 
the  trick  properly  requires  both  a  completer  training  and  a 
more  disinterested  point  of  view. 

There  is  not  very  much  to  say  about  the  country  house 
of  this  period,  because  the  few  that  were  built  were  not 
taking  on  any  new  or  noteworthy  characteristics.  Those  that 
were  erected  were  designed  either  in  the  "  Gothic  "  style  or 
in  that  of  the  "  Italian  "  villa — which,  unless  we  exclude  the 
mansard  roof,  contained  not  a  character  and  detail  which  was 
not  fiercely  and  hideously  native. 

The  most  expensive  country  house,  designed  as  a  "mass- 
ive Italian   villa  "  with  a  mansard  roof,  was  "  Ogontz,"  the 

[  256  ] 


THE  GREATER  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

residence  of  Mr.  Jay  Cooke — about  which  it  is  sufficient  to 
report  that  it  contained  seventy-two  rooms  and  was  said  to 
have  cost  $2,000,000.  Mr.  Jay  Cooke,  however,  was  one 
of  the  few  rich  men  of  that  time  who  cared  to  spend  much 
money  on  country  places.  The  new  millionaires  were  con- 
tent with  a  vacation  of  a  few  weeks,  passed  at  a  summer 
hotel,  and  an  occasional  trip  to  Europe.  Saratoga  was  their 
notion  of  a  little  pleasant  rural  relaxation.  In  the  vicinity 
of  Boston  the  habit  of  living  in  the  country  was  much  more 
general;  but  nowhere  else  had  social  custom  become  eman- 
cipated to  any  considerable  extent  from  the  hotel  habit. 

Beginning,  however,  in  1880,  or  even  before,  an  obvious 
increase  in  country  life  and  a  revival  of  interest  in  the  build- 
ing of  country  houses  is  to  be  observed.  Newport  began  to 
assume  something  of  its  modern  importance,  and  the  great 
Newport  houses  began  to  be  built.  Nor  was  this  all.  Very 
rich  people  began  to  want  not  merely  a  handsome  villa,  but 
a  large,  completely  equipped  country  estate.  The  habits  of 
rich  and  fashionable  people  became  more  and  more  adapted 
to  living  in  the  country  during  several  months  in  the  year 
and  entertaining  on  a  large  scale.  The  way  was  prepared 
for  the  spacious  and  magnificent  country  houses  which 
have  recently  been  erected,  chiefly  in  the  vicinity  of  New 
York. 

In  this  little  sketch  of  the  development  of  the  greater 
American  dwelling  we  have  confined  our  attention  chiefly 

[261] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

to  New  York  and  its  vicinity,  because  the  modern  dwellings, 
to  the  explanation  of  which  we  have  been  leading,  have  been 
built  for  the  most  part  in  New  York  or  by  the  architects  and 
residents  of  that  city.  Whenever  attempts  have  been  made 
to  erect  residences  in  the  West  on  the  same  scale  the  results 
have  not  been  anything  like  so  generally  interesting  and  suc- 
cessful. In  fact  they  suggest,  not  in  detail  and  character  of 
design,  but  in  esthetic  atmosphere,  the  New  York  residence 
of  twenty-five  years  ago. 

A  higher  standard  prevails  in  Boston,  but  also  a  some- 
what different  set  of  architectural  conditions,  which  lie  out- 
side the  scope  of  this  book.  So  far  as  the  West  is  concerned, 
however,  it  is  surely  only  a  question  of  time  when  its  resi- 
dences will  equal  those  of  the  East.  That  great  and  grow- 
ing part  of  the  country  will  possess  all  the  requisites  which 
has  made  the  Eastern  dwelling  possible  —  great  wealth, 
skilled  architects,  and  a  passion  for  social  display — in  as 
large  a  degree  as  the  East,  and  particularly  New  York,  now 
possess  them.  Moreover,  the  West,  in  respect  to  its  city 
houses,  will  have  the  great  advantage  of  oflfering  much  bet- 
ter sites  for  handsome  dwellings. 

The  exterior  of  a  house  in  a  city  like  New  York,  which 
is  built  in  solid  blocks,  is  really  an  impossible  architectural 
problem.  A  designer  can  hardly  reach  a  satisfactory  effect 
with  only  one  or  two  fagades  at  his  disposal;  but  in  the  West 
the  cities  were  built  up  after  comparatively  efficient  means 

[  262  ] 


\ 


THE  GREATER  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

of  urban  transit  were  employed,  and  consequently  the  fine 
residential  avenues  of  some  of  the  Western  cities  offer  the 
architect  admirable  opportunities.  The  building  plots  cover 
large  areas,  the  houses  are  set  back  from  the  street  for  a 
greater  or  smaller  distance,  and  it  is  possible  to  call  in  the 
invaluable  assistance  of  terraces,  landscape  architecture,  and 
effective  planting  both  of  shrubbery  and  trees.  In  fact  it  is 
by  no  means  impossible  that  this  class  of  semi-suburban 
dwelling  on  a  large  scale  may  not,  with  the  assistance  of  the 
automobile  as  a  means  of  transit,  be  developed  into  the  most 
typical  class  of  American  residence. 

That  is  a  matter,  however,  for  the  future,  and  we  are 
dealing  with  the  present  in  its  relation  to  the  past.  Just 
now  the  dwellings  which  we  are  describing  are  situated  for 
the  most  part  in  New  York  and  its  vicinity,  are  designed  by 
New  York  architects,  and  are  owned  by  New  York  million- 
aires; and  the  preeminence  of  New  York  in  this  respect  has 
been  due  to  the  fact  that  the  several  contributing  forces 
which  have  combined  to  make  the  greater  residence  of  to- 
day, and  whose  beginning  we  have  been  tracing,  have  all 
been  localized,  if  at  all,  in  New  York.  It  is  in  New  York 
City  that  many  of  the  richest  men  in  the  country  have  either 
made  their  money  or  have  come  to  live;  it  is  in  New  York 
City  that,  with  some  conspicuous  exceptions,  the  most  promi- 
nent American  architects  practise;  it  is  in  New  York  City, 
'    and  in  New  York  City  only,  that  the  peculiar  mixture  of 

[267] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

foreign  ideas  and  native  conditions  with  which  we  have 
been  dealing  could  have  come  to  a  head. 

We  hope  that  in  tracing  the  introduction  of  these  foreign 
materials  and  origin  of  these  native  conditions  we  have  made 
our  readers  understand  how  essentially  educational  the  whole 
process  has  been.  What  seems  at  the  first  glance  to  be 
merely  an  anarchy  of  meaningless  architectural  imitation 
proves  on  closer  examination  to  contain  both  certain  domi- 
nant motives  and  a  certain  orderly  development.  These 
dominant  motives  have  been,  in  the  first  place,  the  inclina- 
tion to  imitate  the  best  available  architectural  forms,  which 
has  resulted  in  apparently  endless  experimentation,  and 
which  was  really  a  deeper  and  a  sounder  motive  than  the 
conscious  effort  for  independence;  in  the  second  place,  the 
way  in  which  the  wish  to  be  independent  reacted  on  the 
habit  of  imitation  and  issued  in  a  crude  sort  of  architectural 
selection;  and  finally  the  growth  in  the  facility  and  freedom, 
with  which  this  selective  motive  has  come  to  operate,  until 
at  the  present  time  American  architects  may  be  said  to  be 
more  original  imitators  than  the  architects  of  any  other  coun- 
try. The  peculiarity,  however,  of  these  prevailing  motives 
of  American  architectural  history  is  that  they  are  all  general 
and  cultural,  rather  than  specific  and  technical. 

So  far  the  development  has  been  in  ideas,  in  equipment, 
and  in  point  of  view  rather  than  in  the  thrifty  and  vigorous 
use  and  improvement  of  certain  particularly  relevant  forms; 

[  268  ] 


THE  GREATER  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

and  it  is  this  fact  which  explains  the  somewhat  paradoxical 
statement  with  which  we  started  our  review — the  statement, 
viz. :  that,  while  these  greater  contemporary  residences  are 
superficially  modern  and  have  no  American  architectural 
precursors,  yet  they  can  not  be  understood  except  in  the 
light  of  the  general  architectural  history  of  the  country. 
The  forms  are  still  borrowed  and  European,  but  the  reasons 
for  selecting  these  forms  exhaust  the  whole  of  our  social 
and  architectural  past. 

The  development  of  residential  design  which  we  have 
traced  has,  we  believe,  been  wholesome  and  normal,  but  if 
it  remains  in  the  stage  of  cleaving  to  well-selected  and  gram- 
matical imitations  it  will  continue  to  be  neither  wholesome 
nor  normal.  The  time  has  distinctly  come  when  the  progress 
in  knowledge,  ideas,  and  in  intelligence  of  selection  must  be 
succeeded  by  progress  in  specifically  technical  achievement. 
The  foreign  models  which  have  hitherto  been  copied,  and 
so  well  and  usefully  copied,  must  be  used  as  the  basis  of  a 
series  of  modifications  which  will  make  them  more  express- 
ive of  American  surroundings  and  manner  of  life;  and  we 
suspect  and  trust  that  certain  changes  which  have  recently 
taken  place  in  the  training  of  American  architects  will  assist 
them  to  begin  this  necessary  process  of  technical  and  formal 
revision. 

We  all  know  that  since   1892  the  work  of  some  of  the 
younger  men  who  have  been  trained  at  the  Ecole  des  Beaux 

[  271  ] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

Arts  has  been  the  most  conspicuous  fact  in  American  archi- 
tecture, that  the  proportion  of  French-trained  architects  is 
increasing  rather  than  diminishing,  and  that  the  Beaux  Arts 
methods  and  spirit  have  been  to  a  certain  extent  adopted  in 
the  American  architectural  schools.  So  far  the  work  actu- 
ally accomplished  under  Beaux  Arts  influence  has  only 
helped  to  add  one  more  style,  viz.,  modern  French,  to  the 
extraordinary  collection  of  American  architectural  debris, 
but  we  do  not  believe  that  this  will  be  the  only  outcome  of 
the  introduction  of  French  influence.  What  Frenchmen 
particularly  represent  in  our  modern  world  is  a  sense  of 
form  and  a  devotion  to  form;  and  the  value  of  the  French 
training,  whether  received  at  first  or  second  hand,  will  con- 
sist in  the  stimulus  which  it  will  give  American  architects 
to  become  interested  in  the  purely  formal  and  technical 
aspect  of  architectural  design.  The  other  styles  which  have 
been  imported  have  not  brought  with  them  any  similar  stim- 
ulus; they  have  been  the  product  of  temporary  fashions  or 
reformatory  ideas. 

But  at  the  present  time  American  architecture  seems  to 
be  laying  the  foundation  of  a  vigorous  native  growth;  it 
seems  to  be  adopting  the  one  distinctively  artistic  tradition 
without  which  under  the  conditions  of  modern  national  cul- 
ture there  can  not  be  any  continuous  and  vital  expression  in 
the  fine  arts.  This  growing  sense  of  form  and  devotion  to 
it  must,   of   course,   find   its   own   specific   and   appropriate 

[  272  ] 


THE  GREATER  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

forms  by  a  process  of  gradual  selection  and  improvement; 
but  that  process  may  be  left  to  take  care  of  itself — provided 
only  it  is  perpetuated  by  men  with  the  proper  point  of  view 
and  with  adequate  training. 


[275] 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 
ECONOMIC  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS 


CHAPTER  VI 

Cl^e  jEDDern  amertcan  EejsiDence— economic  and 
foetal  CotiDitfonjs 

'HE  primary  fact  about  the  greater  con- 
temporary residence  is  that  it  is  the  house 
of  a  very  rich  man.  All  the  greater  resi- 
dences of  the  past  have  been  conditioned 
upon  the  possession  of  wealth;  but  they 
have  priB^rily  expressed  something  different — an  established 
and  impressive  social  position  or  some  sort  of  propriety  or 
luxury  of  life. 

Our  American  residences,  on  the  other  hand,  will  not  be 
understood  unless  it  is  frankly  admitted  that  they  are  built 
for  men  whose  chief  title  to  distinction  is  that  they  are  rich, 
and  that  they  are  designed  by  men  whose  architectural  ideas 
are  profoundly  modified  by  the  riches  of  their  clients. 
This  is  an  aspect  of  the  matter  upon  which  it  is  not  pleas- 
ant to  dwell;  but  it  is  also  an  aspect,  both  of  American  resi- 
dential architecture  and  of  American  life  generally,  which 
it  is  impossible  and  even  dangerous  to  ignore.  If  wealth, 
whether  widely  distributed  or  concentrated  in  a  few  hands, 

[2791 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

or  both,  is  as  bad  a  thing  as  some  passages  in  the  Prophets 
and  the  Gospels  make  it  out  to  be,  there  is  little  hope  for 
American  civilization,  for  our  civilization  is  assuredly  con- 
ditioned on  the  belief  that  a  high  standard  of  comfort  is  not 
of  necessity  morally  stupefying,  or  the  possession  of  large 
fortunes  inevitably  a  source  of  evil  and  corruption. 

Unless  we  are  to  go  back  on  the  whole  trend  of  our  de- 
velopment, we  must  find  some  way  of  reconciling  prosperity 
with  heroism,  and  great  wealth  with  moderation,  refine- 
ment, and  distinction.  That  we  have  already  traveled  far 
along  that  road  it  would  be  hazardous  to  assert;,  but  we 
have  traveled  far  enough  to  justify  Americans  in  facing 
the  prospect  of  a  longer  journey  with  some  equanimity.  In 
Henry  James's  story  of  the  "Wings  of  the  Dove"  there  is 
an  American  girl,  whose  disposition  is  that  of  an  angel,  yet 
whose  personality  both  palpably  and  subtly  exhales  wealth; 
and  we  might  take  this  very  modern  instance  as  the  finer 
promise  of  certain  current  tendencies.  There  is  something 
very  palpable,  and  not  in  the  least  subtle,  about  the  impres- 
sion of  wealth  afforded  by  the  greater  contemporary  resi- 
dence. It  has  as  little  modesty  about  it,  and  makes  as  loud 
a  proclamation  of  its  own  merit  as  any  other  characteristic 
American  achievement.  Nevertheless  it  does  so  much  to 
deserve  its  frank  splendor  that  it  generally  escapes  the  dan- 
ger of  showy  and  costly  things — the  inexcusable  fault,  that 
is,  of  being  both  wasteful  and  worthless. 

[  280  ] 


ECONOMIC  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS 

Since,  however,  these  houses  are  built  primarily  to  be 
inhabited  by  rich  men  and  to  please  them,  some  short 
account  of  the  American  millionaire  is  a  natural  accom- 
paniment of  a  description  of  his  habitation.  Just  as  we 
found  that  an  historical  sketch  of  the  changes  which  have 
taken  place  in  the  better  American  residence  consisted  even 
more  in  a  history  of  ideas  than  in  a  history  of  architectural 
forms,  so  in  a  description  of  the  contemporary  residence,  we 
shall  go  astray  unless  we  keep  its  inhabitants  constantly  in 
mind.  The  architecture  of  these  buildings,  meritorious  as 
in  some  respects  it  is,  has  not  become  well  enough  formed 
and  technically  disinterested  to  justify  an  exclusively  tech- 
nical consideration.  It  remains  architecturally  in  an  experi- 
mental stage — the  nature  of  the  experiment  being  explained 
chiefly  by  the  disposition  and  wealth  of  the  owner. 

If  the  wealth  were  any  less  than  it  is,  and  if  it  were  not 
such  an  inexorable  fact  in  the  interpretation  both  of  the 
owner's  personality  and  his  dwelling,  this  aspect  of  the  mat- 
ter could  be  passed  over  with  less  emphasis;  but  it  is  the 
essence  of  the  whole  situation  that  these  fortunes  are  fairly 
overpowering.  Their  influence  is  not  to  be  denied.  Their 
owners  can  not  escape  them  any  more  than  an  English  duke 
can  escape  his  title;  and  they  have  plainly  hypnotized  the 
popular  attention  and  confused  popular  standards.  The 
most  important  thing  about  a  duke  is  not  that  he  is  a  man, 
but  that  he  was  born  a  duke.     The  most  important  thing 

[283] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

about  a  millionaire  is  that  he  has  made  and  is  making  his 
millions.  And  just  as  an  impoverished  duke  must  live  some- 
how in  a  ducal  residence,  so  even  a  retiring  millionaire  must, 
as  a  rule,  have  his  far  from  retiring  house. 

Nothing  corresponding  to  this  has  been  true,  say,  of  the 
rich  men  who  have  been  thrown  ofi  by  the  industrial 
expansion  of  Great  Britain.  The  commercially  wealthy 
Englishman  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  played  an  impor- 
tant and  honorable  part  in  the  political,  social,  and  economic 
life  of  his  country;  but  he  has  been  about  as  far  as  possible 
from  assuming  the  dominant  role,  which  is  now  being 
played  by  the  American  millionaire.  Of  course  one  obvi- 
ous reason  is  that  the  wealthy  commercial  Englishman  has 
been  very  much  less  wealthy  than  the  wealthy  American; 
but  this  difference  is  not  so  much  a  cause  as  an  eflfect.  The 
wealthy  English  business  man  has  been  less  wealthy  than  his 
American  prototype  partly  because  has  had  fewer  oppor- 
tunities, but  also  partly  because  he  had  a  weaker  purpose; 
and  his  resolution  to  be  wealthy  was  weaker  because  the 
social  rewards  of  wealth  were  smaller  in  England  than  they 
are  in  the  United  States.  No  matter  how  rich  he  be,  the 
English  tradesman  is  always  overshadowed  by  the  aristoc- 
racy. After  he  has  accumulated  a  certain  amount  of  money 
— as  much  as  he  thinks  he  needs— he  tends  to  give  up  busi- 
ness, and  to  seek  some  share  of  that  social  position  which 
can  be  obtained  only  by  a  certain  way  of  living  or  by  some 

[284] 


ECONOMIC  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS 

service  to  nation  or  party;  and  his  children  who  inherit  this 
wealth  rarely  have  much  inclination  to  increase  it,  but 
rather  to  try  by  doing  good  work  in  the  army,  the  navy,  or 
the  civil  service  to  penetrate  the  English  official  and  social 
hierarchy.  Such  is  the  effect  of  being  born  into  an  estab- 
lished and  mature  social  system  in  which  a  high  valuation 
is  placed  on  social  prestige. 

The  American  millionaire,  on  the  other  hand,  is  born 
into  a  much  more  plastic  society.  The  fluid  nature  of  its 
economic  forms  gives  him  his  extraordinary  opportunity  of 
making  money;  the  fluid  nature  of  its  social  forms  allows 
and  even  encourages  him  to  take  full  advantage  of  these 
opportunities.  He  is  in  no  danger  of  being  overshadowed 
by  an  aristocracy;  he  has  as  yet  no  strong  social  motives  for 
abandoning  his  work  after  he  has  accumulated  a  certain 
income.  On  the  contrary,  whatever  social  prestige  exists 
in  American  society  attaches  to  the  possession  of  a  large  for- 
tune; but  this  motive  has  been  rather  a  condition  than  an 
effective  cause  of  the  accumulation  of  such  fortunes.  The 
American  business  man  goes  ahead  because  of  his  momen- 
tous interest  in  the  game  he  is  playing,  and  without  any  par- 
ticular reference  to  results.  When  he  has  $100,000  he  may 
cherish  a  notion  that  he  will  retire  as  soon  as  he  reaches  a 
million;  but  the  million  comes  quickly,  and  when  he  has 
reached  it  he  has  nothing  else  to  do  but  to  go  ahead.  And 
so  he  continues  to  go  ahead  until  the  end. 

[287] 


/ 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

/  The  consequence  is  that  the  incomes  of  these  rich  men 
are  frequently  entirely  disproportionate  to  any  possible  ex- 
pense account.  It  is  said  that  John  Jacob  Astor  used  to  say 
that  a  man  who  had  $500,000  was  just  as  well  off  as  if  he  was 
rich — by  which  Mr.  Astor  doubtless  meant  that  a  man  ought 
to  be  able  to  buy  everything  he  could  reasonably  desire  with 
an  income  of  $25,000  a  year.  A  good  many  people  at  the 
present  time  would  consider  this  allowance  remarkably 
small;  they  would  think  that  ten  or  twenty  or  even  fifty 
times  $25,000  per  annum  was  no  more  than  enough  with 
which  to  buy  reasonable  luxuries;  but  no  matter  how  high 
a  limit  is  placed  upon  the  amount  of  money  a  man  can  rea- 
sonably spend  upon  luxuries  in  the  course  of  a  year,  it  is 
obvious  that  the  incomes  of  a  great  many  millionaires  far 
surpass  that  figure.  They  are  literally  in  the  position  of 
having  more  money  than  they  can  spend.  In  other  times 
such  excesses  of  fortune  were  either  possessed  or  appropri- 
ated by  the  political  powers;  and  the  latter  found  an  easy 
way  of  dissipating  it  in  schemes  of  political  conquest;  but, 
almost  for  the  first  time,  private  citizens  are  securely  pos- 
sessed of  more  wealth  than  they  can  possibly  use  for  them- 
selves and  families,  and  the  effect  of  this  fact  upon  American 
life  will  be  far-reaching  and  profound. 

Wealth,  of  course,  exists  only  for  the  purpose  of  pur- 
chasing with  it  other  valuable  things.  These  enormous  in- 
comes will  in  the  course  of  time  be  spent  somehow,  for  if 

[288] 


JO 

AiJSH-JAINn 


ECONOMIC  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS 

they  were  allowed  simply  to  go  on  accumulating,  it  could 
only  be  because  their  owners  were  misers,  who,  even  if  they 
spent  lavishly  upon  personal  comforts,  would  have  lost  all 
sense  of  the  value  of  money.  But  there  is  no  indication  as 
yet  that  the  mere  delight  in  accumulation  either  has  been 
an  effective  motive  in  the  making  of  these  fortunes  or  will 
be  an  effective  cause  of  their  perpetuation.  They  have  not 
been  gathered  together  by  the  peculiarly  French  process  of 
shrewd  economies  and  persistent  saving,  for  such  a  method 
of  accumulation  produces  small  results  and  is  the  outcome 
of  a  totally  different  habit  of  mind.  They  are  the  outcome, 
that  is,  of  certain  specific  but  adventurous  and  constructive 
mental  qualities ;  and  since  these  mental  qualities  will  have 
much  effect  on  the  way  the  money  will  be  spent,  as  upon 
the  way  it  has  been  and  is  being  made,  it  is  worth  while  to 
pause  for  a  moment  and  consider  the  methods  by  which  the 
great  American  fortunes  have  been  made  and  what  manner 
of  men  they  have  made  out  of  their  makers.  For  it  is  the 
fortunes  which  have  formed  the  men,  quite  as  much  as  it  is 
the  men  who  have  formed  the  fortunes.  They  may,  for  the 
purposes  of  this  book,  and  fairly,  be  considered  as  a  type, 
for  they  are  the  outcome  of  much  the  same  influences  and 
opportunities  and  exhibit  many  of  the  same  characteristics. 

As  we  have  said,  it  was  the  fluid  condition  of  American 
economic  forms  which  gave  the  business  man  his  opportu- 
nity.    During    the    whole    pioneer    period    everything    was 

[  293  ] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

sacrificed  to  the  all-important  purpose  of  quickening  local 
development — of  getting  the  new  lands  cleared  and  settled, 
of  building  houses,  laying  out  means  of  communication,  and 
initiating  the  first  general  lines  of  manufacture  and  trade; 
and  this  great  work  of  local  development  brought  with  it 
similarly  plastic  and  unorganized  social  and  political  forms. 
Rapidity  of  development  was  such  a  prime  practical  neces- 
sity that  very  few  checks  were  placed  in  the  way  of  ener- 
getic men.  Custom  encouraged  them  to  persist  single- 
mindedly  in  the  all-important  task  of  founding  the  new 
country.  It  was  the  hopeful  assumption  that,  if  the  pioneers 
were  allowed  to  do  their  work  much  as  they  pleased,  every- 
thing would  come  out  all  right;  and  very  few  laws  were 
passed,  contrary  to  what  would  have  been  done  in  an  older 
community,  to  guide  and  direct  their  efforts.  But  as  soon  as 
the  Middle  Western  States  were  well  settled,  and  the  pioneers 
began  spreading  out  west  of  the  Mississippi  and  along  the 
line  of  the  Missouri  River,  this  very  lack  of  guidance  and 
direction  by  any  central  authority,  and  this  very  encourage- 
ment which  society  gave  to  private  individuals  to  go  ahead 
as  far  as  they  pleased,  offered  favored  individuals  the  chance 
to  usurp  on  their  own  account  such  guidance  and  control. 
They  were  given,  that  is,  a  splendid  chance  to  take  an 
economically  unorganized  country  and  organize  it,  and  in 
effecting  this  organization  they  naturally  did  it  in  their  own 
interest. 

[294] 


'^^ 


Ui 


ECONOMIC  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS 

They  placed  themselves  in  a  position  to  obtain  the  lion's 
share  of  the  benefit  of  this  organization;  and  one  of  the  great 
political  tasks  of  the  next  generation  will  be  to  correct  the 
-excesses  which  their  very  skilful  and  energetic  use  of  their 
opportunities  has  generated. 

In  the  beginning,  of  course,  they  had  no  conscious  in- 
tention of  organizing  American  industries  on  a  national 
scale.  But  they  were  gradually  brought  to  the  necessity 
•of  organization  and  control  because  their  interests  were 
threatened  by  unrestricted  competition.  In  a  rapidly  grow- 
ing plastic  country  the  extremes  between  which  business 
varies  are  excessive.  The  manufacturer  or  the  railroad  that 
is  making  enormous  profits  one  year  may  be  skirting  bank- 
ruptcy two  years  thereafter.  Almost  all  the  great  indus- 
trial organizations  were  started  because  some  far-seeing 
and  audacious  man,  finding  his  own  business  threatened 
by  the  excess  of  competition,  dared  to  attempt  some  con- 
trol of  his  competitors.  In  older  countries  the  necessity 
for  self-protection  would  not  have  been  so  great;  neither 
would  there  have  been  the  same  opportunity  for  unre- 
stricted control. 

Consequently,  while  the  great  American  fortunes  have 
originated  in  many  different  branches  of  industry,  the  man- 
ner of  their  accumulation  has  presented  in  the  great  majority 
of  cases  many  interesting  similarities.  They  have  depended 
for  the  most  part  upon  securing  more  or  less  complete  con- 

[297] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

trol  of  the  manufacture  of  a  commodity  or  the  furnishing 
of  a  service  for  which  there  was  a  steady  and  a  large  popu- 
lar demand.  Anything  which  satisfies  a  large  demand, 
whether  it  be  a  railway  train,  a  can  of  oil,  or  a  pound  of 
sugar,  necessarily  conforms  to  a  definite  standard.  The 
grades  of  product  may  vary  between  the  slowest  local  or  the 
fastest  express,  or  between  a  Pittsburg  stogie  and  a  Caro- 
lina perfecto;  but  each  of  these  different  grades  become 
popular  from  the  fact  that  all  the  products  within  the  grade 
are  alike — that  all  express-trains  run  on  express  schedule 
time,  and  that  one  Carolina  perfecto  is  as  good  as  another. 
But  the  standard  products  or  services  which  have  to  be  in- 
definitely duplicated  are  just  the  kind  that  can  not  be  sup- 
plied without  the  large  and  efficient  use  of  machinery  of  all 
kinds:  and  the  use  of  machinery  for  all  purposes,  and  to  the 
very  limit  of  its  power,  is  characteristic  of  American  indus- 
trial methods,  and  particularly  of  the  men  who  have  reaped 
the  big  rewards.  For  this  efficient  use  of  machinery  steadily 
reduces  the  cost  of  production,  while,  owing  to  the  equally 
steady  increase  in  popular  demand  for  all  standard  prod- 
ucts, the  profits  accumulate  at  a  tremendously  rapid  rate — 
at  a  rate  proportionate  to  the  increase  of  the  demand  and 
the  completeness  with  which  the  market  is  controlled. 
Where  the  control  is  complete,  as  in  the  case  of  the  refining 
of  mineral  oil,  the  profits  are  enormous.  Where  the  con- 
trol is  less  complete,   as  in  the  case  of  sugar-refining,   the 

[  298  ] 


ECONOMIC  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS 

profits  are  considerable,  but  probably  not  disproportionate 
to  the  profits  of  ordinary  business. 

Of  course  the  great  difficulty  always  is  to  secure  anything 
like  complete  control;  and  the  method  whereby  this  partial 
or  complete  control  has  been  established  in  different  indus- 
tries is  the  salient  feature  of  the  whole  process.  Naturally 
it  has  varied  a  great  deal,  according  to  the  kind  of  service 
or  commodity  that  was  produced.  It  has  become  most  com- 
plete in  certain  natural  monopolies,  such  as  street-railways 
or  gas  and  electric  lighting,  because  it  is  possible  absolutely 
to  control  such  a  service  in  a  definite  locality.  It  is  less 
complete  in  the  case  of  steam  railroads,  because  the  neces- 
sary area  of  control  is  larger  and  competition  more  effective; 
but  the  great  railway  systems  have  practically  divided  up 
the  country  into  spheres  of  influence,  within  which  certain 
interests  are  dominant  and  reap  the  advantage  of  the  steady 
growth  in  population  and  business.  In  the  production  or 
manufacture  of  certain  staple  products,  such  as  oil,  beef, 
sugar,  or  steel,  competition  has  not,  except  in  one  case,  been 
entirely  extinguished;  but  it  has  frequently  been  much  re- 
duced, and  generally  by  very  similar  methods.  In  the  steel 
industry,  for  instance,  the  Carnegie  company  had  become  so 
strong  and  so  dangerous  to  its  competitors  that  in  self- 
protection  they  were  forced  to  combine  in  order  to  buy 
Mr.  Carnegie  out.  The  merger  which  resulted  created  the 
richest  and  largest  corporation   in   the  world.     No  matter 

[303] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

how  much  competition  has  been  regulated,  however,  it  is 
rarely  entirely  suppressed;  it  always  remains  to  threaten  a 
corporation  that  is  managed  on  the  assumption  that  there  is 
any  virtue  in  organization  apart  from  efficiency.  In  the 
long  run  the  retention  of  whatever  partial  or  complete  con- 
trol these  great  industrial  organizations  exercise  depends 
upon  their  ability  to  manufacture  their  product  or  to  per- 
form their  service  at  an  extremely  low  cost.  The  whole 
fabric  rests  on  the  assumption  that  a  large  product  means  a 
low  cost  of  production,  and  that  a  low  cost  of  production 
can  be  better  obtained  by  the  economical  and  skilful  organ- 
ization of  a  large  business  than  by  the  unrestricted  compe- 
tition of  a  number  of  small  businesses. 

It  is  a  natural  consequence  of  the  whole  organizing 
process  that  these  big  combinations  strengthen  each  others' 
hands,  and  by  their  joint  operations  tend  to  shut  out  the 
small  producers.  The  concern  that  buys  in  large  quantities 
has  the  same  advantage  as  the  concern  that  sells  in  large 
quantities;  it  is  entitled  to  the  best  possible  terms.  The 
most  notorious  example  of  this  is  the  help  which  secret  rail- 
way rebates  have  afiforded  to  the  building  up  of  industrial 
organizations  and  combinations;  but  the  same  principle  finds 
a  thousand  intricate  expressions,  which  are  sometimes  diffi- 
cult to  trace,  because  the  action  takes  place  behind  the 
scenes.  Indeed,  the  drama  of  modern  American  industrial 
organization  may  be  compared  to  the  French  classical  trag- 

[  304  ] 


Q 
-J 
O 
PQ 

W 

:z; 

H 

2; 
w 

w 
o 

M 

;z 

M 
Q 
I— I 
c« 
W 

e5 

M 

E 
h 


ECONOMIC  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS 

edy  in  which  all  the  killing  is  done  in  private,  and  all  the 
big  effective  speeches  made  in  public.  American  industry, 
like  American  politics,  tends  to  be  conducted  by  conferences 
in  committee;  and  the  successful  business  man,  like  the  suc- 
cessful politician,  must  not  only  be  a  skilful  organizer,  but 
a  smooth  and  persuasive  negotiator.  This  necessity  and 
habit  of  negotiation,  this  constant  practise  of  the  big  men 
of  acting  together,  tends  to  turn  them  into  a  coterie,  the 
different  members  of  which  know  each  other  well,  are  much 
alive  to  common  interests  and  enmities,  and  prefer  to  do 
business  with  each  other,  because  they  can  negotiate  much 
more  effectively  with  men  who  have  the  same  point  of  view 
and  who  exercise  the  same  kind  of  power  as  they  themselves. 
The  fact  that  there  exists  a  sort  of  personal  bond  among 
these  rich  men,  and  that  they  have  the  best  reasons  for  asso- 
ciating chiefly  with  one  another,  is  of  the  utmost  importance 
in  its  effect  upon  their  habits  of  thought,  and  generally  upon 
their  social  significance  and  influence. 

Thus  the  man  who  erects  the  greater  contemporary  resi- 
dence is  necessarily  a  man  of  great  concentration  of  pur- 
pose, of  intense  and  continuous  activity,  and  of  somewhat 
exclusive  interests.  He  has  had  neither  time  nor  need  to  be 
an  all-around  man,  who  has  leisure  for  many  things  or  who 
has  many  different  ways  of  living.  All  his  associations  and 
habits  tend  to  make  him  a  man  who  is  specially  and  con- 
tinually  occupied   with    the   prosecution   of   large   business 

[307] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

affairs,  and  who  finds  his  occupation  excitement  and  per- 
haps no  little  amusement  in  planning  and  consummating 
such  schemes.  But,  in  proportion  as  he  is  successful,  his 
peculiar  faculty  must  consist  of  his  ability  to  "  size  up  "  and 
deal  with  other  men,  and  of  judging  whether  these  other 
men  know  their  business  thoroughly.  Just  because  he  sits 
in  a  New  York  office  and  directs  the  operation  of  all  kinds 
of  industries  all  over  the  country  his  whole  scheme  of  indus- 
trial management  depends  upon  his  ability  to  buy  the  faith- 
ful and  skilful  service  of  other  people.  Indeed,  that  is  just 
what  organization  means:  the  making  of  the  right  place  for 
the  right  man.  One  of  the  main  reasons  why  some  at  least 
of  the  big  American  business  men  have  been  so  successful  is 
that  they  have  been  wise  enough  not  only  to  put  the  right 
man  in  the  right  place,  but  to  pay  him  liberally  for  faithful 
and  intelligent  service. 

The  organization  of  American  industries,  however,  which 
has  been  accomplished  by  these  industrial  leaders  has  one 
characteristic  which  has  a  far-reaching  effect  upon  other  than 
industrial  activities.  This  organization  has  been  achieved 
by  private  citizens  for  special  and  private  purposes,  and  it 
consequently  differs  radically  from  the  organization  of  older 
countries,  such  as  England  or  France — in  which  the  spe- 
cial business  organization  is  subordinated  to  the  general, 
social,  and  political  organization.  In  the  achievement  of 
his  special  purposes  the  American  industrial  leader  needs  the 

[  308  ] 


Q 

nJ 

O 

PQ 

^; 

s 

M 
I-] 
O 

o 

M 

SS 
W 

Q 

i-< 

CO 

M 
P< 

M 


>JiKict. 


ECONOMIC  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS 

services  of  other  people  besides  those  of  mechanical  experts 
or  good  executives;  he  needs,  for  instance,  a  certain  amount 
of  legislation  or  protection  against  legislation;  and  because 
he  is  only  a  private  citizen,  with  private  and  special  instead 
of  general  ends  in  view,  he  can  not  demand  the  needed  legis- 
lation or  legislative  protection;  he  is  obliged  to  buy  it.  The 
whole  machinery  of  American  politics  has  been  radically 
modified  by  this  fact.  From  the  very  start  the  big  corpo- 
rations have  bought  the  political  power  they  needed,  just  as 
they  have  bought  the  mechanical  skill  that  they  needed;  and 
the  audacity  and  unscrupulousness  that  have  sometimes  char- 
acterized these  purchases  have  produced  the  impression  that 
these  big  capitalistic  organizations  contain  in  them  some- 
thing essentially  inimical  to  public  interests.  One  author, 
Mr.  W.  J.  Ghent,  as  we  have  already  mentioned,  goes  so 
far  as  to  argue  that  our  industrial  barons  have  set  out  to 
organize  not  merely  their  own  businesses,  but  the  whole  of 
American  life  for  their  own  benefit,  and  that  little  by  little 
they  will  purchase  all  the  independence  and  rectitude  that 
is  left  in  the  country. 

If  there  is  anything,  however,  in  the  foregoing  account 
of  the  purposes  and  methods  of  the  American  millionaire, 
this  view  is  wholly  erroneous.  Our  industrial  leaders  are 
not  seeking  power  for  its  own  sake;  they  have  merely  bought 
as  much  political  power  as  they  needed  to  build  up  the  busi- 
nesses in  which  they  are  interested.     As  soon  as  their  cor- 

[313] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

porate  enterprises  are  thoroughly  established,  and  have  a 
definite  legal  position,  which  is  protected  against  attack  and 
restricted  against  excess,  they  will  be  glad  enough  to  aban- 
don their  expensive  and  dangerous  methods  of  purchasing 
political  power.  They  have  no  general  political  ambition; 
their  energies  and  talents  are  fastened  almost  exclusively  on 
the  protection  and  development  of  their  businesses;  and  they 
are  as  far  as  possible  from  wishing  to  play  the  part  of  polit- 
ical usurpers.  Indeed,  it  will  be  found  that  they  are,  at  bot- 
tom and  apart  from  their  special  talents  and  vocation,  very 
much  like  ordinary  American  citizens  in  that  they  are  con- 
servative in  their  general  ideas,  extremely  susceptible  to 
public  opinion,  and  very  desirous  of  being  esteemed  by  their 
fellow  citizens. 

In  short,  they  have  not  in  the  least  an  un-American  dis- 
position of  going  it  alone.  Americans  take  the  greatest  and 
the  most  justifiable  pride  in  the  fact  that  their  two  great 
national  heroes,  Washington  and  Lincoln,  instead  of  being 
great  in  the  brutal  and  unscrupulous  Napoleonic  manner, 
have  managed  to  unite  with  their  greatness  a  certain  defer- 
ence to  public  opinion,  a  considerable  moral  circumspec- 
tion, and  a  kindly  and  humane  disposition  toward  other 
people.  Well,  we  believe  it  can  be  fairly  claimed  that  the 
modern  industrial  leaders  of  this  country,  although  warped 
by  the  fact  that  their  personal  interests  are  frequently  an- 
tagonistic to  honest  politics  and  wholesome  social  economy, 

[314] 


w 
a 

w 

Q 

c/: 
M 


ECONOMIC  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS 

nevertheless  conform  to  what  we  like  to  believe  are  the  char- 
acteristic traits  of  our  American  democratic  manhood.  And 
this  state  of  mind  on  their  part  is  not,  as  Mr.  Ghent  would 
have  us  believe,  a  merely  selfish  benevolence;  it  proceeds 
from  a  genuine  interest  in  the  national  welfare  and  a  genuine 
desire  to  strengthen  the  social  bond.  It  is  notorious,  of 
course,  that  they  have  given  their  money  more  liberally  for 
educational  purposes  than  have  the  rich  men  of  any  other 
country  or  any  other  period;  and,  while  the  significance  of 
this  fact  can  easily  be  overestimated,  it  merely  confirms  what 
is  known  about  their  general  disposition.  It  is  certainly  true 
that  on  the  whole  they  are  interested  in  estimable  and  civil- 
izing things;  and  we  believe  it  tg  be  also  true  that  the  good 
effects  of  this  interest  in  estimable  and  civilizing  things  will 
increasingly  outweigh  the  bad  effects  of  their  too  conspicu- 
ous extravagances  and  their  hostility  to  the  regulation  of 
corporations  for  the  national  public  benefit,  j 

However  that  may  be,  the  house  the  millionaire  has  built 
is  assuredly  the  product  of  a  civilizing  and  constructive 
rather  than  a  decadent  and  corrupting  impulse.  More  than 
ever  before  he  wants  something  really  admirable.  His  ideas 
as  to  what  are  admirable  are  somewhat  barbaric  and  are 
wholly  lacking  in  that  sense  of  economy  which  is  such  a 
necessary  corrective  of  artistic  extravagances  and  which  lies 
so  near  to  a  native  love  of  beautiful  things;  but  what  else 
can  be  expected?     The  strong,  successful  man  wants  to  have 

[317] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

his  personal  success  strikingly  but  adequately  commemorated. 
This  "  adequate  "  commemoration  must  be  striking,  because 
his  success  has  been  dazzling;  and  it  must  be  admirable,  be- 
cause he  wants  this  commemoration  to  be  approved. 

But  he  is  a  busy  man,  and  generally  has  neither  time 
nor  inclination  to  take  much  interest  in  the  details  of  the 
movement.  Well  aware  that  he  knows  nothing  about  archi- 
tecture, he  employs  the  services  of  the  men  who  are  recom- 
mended to  him  as  the  best  architects;  and,  habituated  as  he 
is  to  trusting  his  interests  to  competent  subordinates,  he 
allows  his  architects  within  certain  limits  to  have  much 
their  own  way.  His  ideas  about  the  house  he  wants  will 
generally  be  very  vague,  and,  in  case  they  are  definite,  will 
be  formed  partly  by  those  European  reminiscences  of  which 
we  have  already  spoken  and  partly  by  the  kind  of  houses 
which  his  associates  have  been  building.  As  these  houses 
being  themselves  suggested  by  European  reminiscences,  there 
is  no  contradiction  between  the  two  sources  of  effect.  Fa- 
miliar local  instances  intensify  grateful  memories,  and  fash- 
ion lends  a  hand  to  the  best  contemporary  aesthetic  ideals. 

The  architect,  in  designing  dwellings  of  this  kind,  is  not 
doing  any  violence  to  his  taste.  He  is  even  more  overflow- 
ing with  architectural  memories  than  is  the  millionaire;  and 
he  preserves  them  systematically  in  great  big  books.  Like 
his  client,  also,  he  does  not  want  to  dispense  with  architec- 
tural traditions.     Indeed,   he  clings   to   them;   his  work   is 

[318] 


i  ?ff  iiLii  ill 


New  York  City. 


Rose  &  Stone,   Architects. 


THE    BROKAW    HOUSE. 


ECONOMIC  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS 

devoted  to  domesticating  them  in  his  native  country.  The 
use  of  these  memories  is  still  somev^hat  indiscriminate.  If 
he  does  not  attempt  to  blend  an  Oriental  pagoda  with  a 
medieval  castle,  he  also  does  not  bother  himself  much  about 
archeological  consistency — provided  he  can  obtain  a  consist- 
ent and  striking  efifect.  It  is  these  striking  effects  for  which 
he  is  always  seeking,  and  that  is  the  reason  why  he  and  his 
client  generally  get  along  very  well  together.  In  the  pur- 
suit of  the  striking  effect  money  is  spent  with  unparalleled 
generosity.  The  rich  man  does  not  stint  his  architect,  but 
he  insists  on  getting  a  million  dollars'  worth  of  good  looks 
for  a  million  dollars.  The  inconspicuous  refinement,  the 
modest  understatement,  the  scrupulous  economy  of  colonial 
architecture  rarely  appeals  to  him;  and  it  happens  to  appeal 
just  as  little  to  his  favorite  designers.  Economy,  indeed,  of 
any  kind  is  not  characteristic  of  the  American  disposition. 
Our  countrymen  want  a  big  result  in  a  short  time;  and  even 
things  artistic,  unless  they  conform  to  this  demand,  are  neg- 
lected. The  architect  instinctively  feels  that  for  the  good 
of  American  art  people  must  be  startled  into  noticing  and 
admiring  these  "  palatial  "  mansions.  At  the  present  stage 
of  American  architectural  esthetics  they  have  the  effect  of 
monumental  "  posters,"  advertising  to  the  world  both  Amer- 
ican opulence  and  American  artistic  emancipation. 

It  does  not  require  very  much  penetration  to  discern  that 
the   relations  between   the   rich  man   and   his   architect  are 

[323] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

controlled  by  very  much  the  same  logic  as  the  relation  be- 
tween a  railroad  president  and  a  political  boss.  The  rich 
man  is  buying  a  service  which  he  needs,  but  which  lies  out- 
side of  the  compass  of  his  personal  or  class  organization; 
and  he  is  buying  it  in  a  way  and  in  a  spirit  which  a  few 
generations  from  now  will,  we  trust,  be  unnecessary.  Of 
course  the  rich  American  of  the  year  2000  A.  D.  will  need 
well-trained  architects,  and  plenty  of  them;  but  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  he  will  turn  over  his  house  to  them  as 
helplessly  as  he  does  at  present.  By  that  time,  or  sooner, 
he  ought  to  know,  or  at  least  his  wife  ought  to  know,  very 
much  more  definitely  what  he  or  she  wants.  They  will  take, 
that  is,  a  very  much  more  personal,  intimate,  and  well-in- 
formed interest  in  the  details  of  their  own  houses  than  they 
do  at  present;  they  will  have  become  accustomed  to  certain 
forms,  and  will  suggest  directions  in  which  these  forms  can 
be  modified.  The  architect  of  that  time  will  have  clients 
who  not  only  will  submit  to  the  effects  he  obtains,  but  will 
understand  in  part  how  these  effects  are  reached.  So  far  as 
the  interior  of  the  houses  are  concerned,  they  will  ask  him 
to  do  less,  but  in  what  he  does  do  there  will  have  to  be  a 
greater  propriety  and  a  more  positive  originality. 

We  make  this  prediction  about  the  future  relations  be- 
tween an  architect  and  his  rich  client  with  some  confidence, 
because  their  relations  at  the  present  time  have  a  certain 
tendency  in  the  direction  we  are  describing;  and  in  order  to 

[324] 


ECONOMIC  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS 

understand  the  transformation  which  is  beginning  to  take 
place  we  must  again  fall  back  upon  the  conception  of  a 
genuine  American  art  as  something  which  is  to  be  acquired 
by  experience  and  practise.  In  founding  libraries  and  en- 
dowing colleges  the  American  millionaires  are  helping  to 
educate  their  fellow  countrymen.  In  employing  skilled 
architects  to  design  these  magnificent  residences  they  are 
consciously  or  unconsciously  helping  to  educate  themselves 
and  their  families.  No  matter  how  busy  a  man  may  be,  and 
no  matter  how  crude  his  early  training,  the  formative  effect 
of  being  surrounded  by  well-proportioned  rooms  and  good- 
looking  furniture  and  hangings  is  too  persistent  and  insidious 
to  be  denied.  We  do  not  mean,  of  course,  that  he  becomes 
in  a  few  years  a  man  of  unimpeachable  taste  and  of  well- 
conceived  ideas  about  interior  decoration;  but  we  do  mean 
that  the  gradual  habituation  of  his  eye  to  good  forms,  propor- 
tions, and  colors  makes  him  unconsciously  crave  that  sort  of 
thing;  and  in  making  this  assertion  we  are  not  merely  draw- 
ing an  inference  about  what  ought  to  happen.  Architects 
who  have  more  experience  in  working  with  opulent,  well- 
intentioned,  but  ill-informed  clients,  very  generally  testify 
to  the  quick  improvement  which  is  brought  about  in  the 
latter's  taste  by  the  contagion  of  good-looking  domestic 
surroundings. 

The  effect  is  naturally  still  more  pervasive  and  profound 
upon  the   rich  man's   children.     From   childhood   they  are 

[327] 


STATELY   HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

familiarly  accustomed  to  nothing  else  in  the  way  of  furni- 
ture and  hangings  but  that  which  is  comely,  well-arranged, 
and  rich  in  suggestion;  and,  familiar  as  they  are  with  that 
sort  of  thing,  they  fall  under  the  spell  of  good  architectural 
manners  much  more  completely  and  unconsciously  than  did 
their  parents.  Whenever  they  happen  to  be  people  with  a 
native  sense  of  form,  or  a  strong  interest  in  beautiful  things, 
this  early  familiarity  with  richly  and  finely  fashioned  rooms 
enables  them  to  handle  this  kind  of  material  with  some  free- 
dom and  consistency,  so  that,  should  they  come,  as  they  fre- 
quently do,  to  build  houses  of  their  own,  they  are  not  quite 
such  passive  material  in  the  hands  of  their  architects  as  their 
fathers  were  before  them.  They  have  their  personal  likes 
and  dislikes,  their  particular  ideas  regarding  the  proper 
effect  of  different  rooms,  or  the  value  of  different  materials; 
and  their  houses  consequently  have  a  tendency  to  become 
less  ready-made  and  more  individual.  The  educational 
leaven  has  been  working,  and  has  been  preparing  the  way 
for  a  different  and  better  order  of  domestic  esthetics. 

These  considerations  as  to  the  educational  value  of  "  stun- 
ning "  interiors  upon  the  people  who  are  habitually  stunned 
by  them  remind  us  that  it  is  time  to  introduce  some  system  of 
classification  into  the  group  of  rich  men,  who  have  hitherto 
been  lumped  indiscriminately  together.  For  the  most  part 
it  is  fair  to  describe  them  as  similar  in  their  occupations  and 
tastes,  because,   as  we  have  already  pointed  out,   they  are 

[  328  ] 


Oalidale,    L.    I.  Ernest   Flagg,    Architect. 

DRAWING-ROOM     IN    THE    RESIDENCE    OF    F.     K.     BOURNE. 


ECONOMIC  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS 

molded  by  similar  influences  and  constitute,  socially  as  well 
as  economically,  a  kind  of  coterie.  Still  there  are  discrim- 
inations to  be  made;  and,  as  these  discriminations  are  having 
their  subordinate  effect  upon  our  greater  domestic  architec- 
ture, they  can  not  be  entirely  ignored  even  for  the  purpose 
of  the  book.  The  most  important  source  of  difference  among 
American  millionaires  derives  from  the  length  of  time  which 
they  and  their  parents  have  enjoyed  their  money.  In  spite 
of  the  fact  that  they  have  almost  all  of  them  come  to  the 
front  since  the  Civil  War,  their  wealth  is  now  being  spent 
sometimes  by  the  third  or  fourth  generation;  so  that,  new  as 
the  millionaire  is  in  American  life,  he  is  beginning  to  have 
a  little  history  and  to  suggest  certain  lines  of  transformation 
and  development.  The  description  which  we  have  given  of 
him  in  this  book  as  an  essentially  busy  man,  whose  business 
is  the  most  of  his  personal  life,  is  on  the  whole  true;  but  it  is 
not  so  true  now  as  it  was  six  or  seven  years  ago,  and  in  an- 
other ten  years  it  will  be  still  less  true.  The  first  generation 
of  American  industrial  leaders  was  interested  almost  exclu- 
sively in  playing  their  game,  and  went  ahead  without  much 
reference  to  the  value  to  themselves  of  the  stakes;  the  same 
statement  is  true,  although  to  a  smaller  extent,  of  the  second 
generation;  but  wherever  a  third  or  a  fourth  generation 
appeared  on  the  stage  they  have  not  unnaturally  shown  a 
somewhat  different  temper.  They  have  shown,  that  is,  a 
disposition  similar  to  that  of  Europeans  who  inherit  abun- 

[333] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

dant  incomes.  They  are  more  interested  in  devising  ingeni- 
ous ways  of  spending  their  money  than  they  are  in  laying 
plans  for  its  increase.  They  are  tending  to  become,  that  is, 
a  leisured  class — the  very  first  set  of  leisured  and  wealthy 
people  which  American  life  has  developed;  and  in  propor- 
tion as  the  number  of  these  leisured  and  wealthy  people  in- 
creases, the  whole  aspect  and  significance  of  American  resi- 
dential architecture  will  alter. 

An  account  of  the  transformation  which  is  now  beginning 
to  take  place  will  be  more  accurate  and  instructive,  in  case 
we  deal  with  specific  names  and  instances.  Neither  the  first 
of  the  Vanderbilts,  the  first  of  the  Goulds,  the  first  of  the 
Astors,  or  the  first  of  the  Rockefellers  evinced  any  interest 
in  domestic  or  any  other  kind  of  architecture.  They  were 
or  are  content  with  respectable,  comfortable,  and  ugly  houses, 
which  might  or  might  not  be  on  Fifth  Avenue.  The  same 
statement  is  not  true  of  Mr.  Carnegie,  who  late  in  life  built 
himself  a  handsome  city  house,  something  in  the  modern 
style;  but  he  showed  a  survival  of  the  thriftiness  of  his  early 
habits,  as  well  as  his  personal  opinion  of  the  big  modern 
dwellings,  by  carefully  instructing  his  architects  to  avoid 
designing  a  "  palatial "  building.  On  the  other  hand,  in 
many  cases,  particularly  among  men  who  have  made  their 
money  more  recently,  the  very  first  generation  of  rich  men, 
who  are  still  entirely  devoted  to  business,  started  in  to  erect 
really    magnificent    dwellings,    and    among    them    may    be 

[334] 


— >.  ■\f.^'^. 


'Vt\:mvm 


ECONOMIC  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS 

mentioned  the  late  C.  P.  Huntington,  Charles  M.  Schwab, 
a  number  of  the  steel  and  Standard  Oil  millionaires, 
Mr.  Charles  T.  Yerkes,  Mr.  Marshall  Field,  and  many 
others. 

If  the  craving  for  a  "  palatial  "  residence,  however,  some- 
times escaped  the  first  generation  of  millionaires,  it  rarely 
escaped  the  second  generation.  These  gentlemen,  of  which 
George  Gould,  the  late  William  H.  Vanderbilt,  and  Mr.  J. 
P.  Morgan  may  be  considered  as  types,  remained  as  faith- 
ful to  the  vast  business  interests  they  inherited  as  did 
their  fathers  before  them.  So  far  from  becoming  the  eco- 
nomic parasites  which  the  possession  of  large  inherited 
fortunes  so  frequently  produces,  they  have  succeeded  fre- 
quently in  making  even  bigger  reputations  for  themselves  as 
industrial  organizers  than  their  fathers  possessed.  At  the 
same  time,  however,  they  have  also  taken  a  much  more  posi- 
tive interest  in  the  spending  of  their  money,  and  have  almost 
without  exception  allowed  themselves  the  characteristic 
American  esthetic  luxuries  and  extravagances.  The  third 
generation  has  come  upon  the  stage  only  in  a  few  instances; 
but  wherever  it  has  appeared  it  has  shown  an  increasing 
tendency  to  neglect  business  for  leisured  pleasure.  Of  the 
third  generation  of  Astors,  for  instance,  Mr.  William  Wal- 
dorf Astor  is  so  completely  possessed  by  the  notion  of  culti- 
vated, fashionable,  and  opulent  leisure  that  he  must  needs 
seek  its   satisfaction   in   England.     His   brother,   Mr.   John 

[337] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

Jacob  Astor,  remains  in  his  native  country,  but  he  is  prac- 
tically out  of  business.  The  third  generation  of  Vanderbilts 
did  not  succumb  so  completely  to  the  temptations  of  becom- 
ing annuitants.  Of  the  four  brothers,  the  two  younger,  Mr. 
Fred  and  Mr.  George  Vanderbilt,  did  indeed  abandon  any 
very  active  participation  in  the  conduct  of  their  family's 
affairs;  but  the  two  elder,  the  late  Cornelius  Vanderbilt  and 
William  K.  Vanderbilt,  while  taking  more  leisure  than  their 
father  did,  still  remained  essentially  men  of  business.  As 
to  the  fourth  generation  of  this  family,  which  is  already 
beginning  to  marry  and  show  its  metal,  it  looks  very  decid- 
edly as  if  they  proposed  to  abandon  business,  except  in  the 
capacity  of  occasional  investors,  and  were  going  to  devote 
themselves  to  the  sports  and  amusements  of  country  and 
city  life. 

How  far  this  tendency  will  go,  one  would  scarcely  ven- 
ture at  the  present  time  to  predict.  The  statement  that  rich 
Americans  are  busy  men  still  remains  overwhelmingly  true. 
The  large  American  fortunes,  except  in  the  few  cases  men- 
tioned above,  are  owned  by  the  people  who  founded  them  or 
by  their  immediate  descendants;  and  these  people,  although 
they  exhibit  a  livelier  inclination  to  enjoy  themselves  than 
they  did  fifteen  or  twenty  years  ago,  are  almost  as  much 
preoccupied  as  ever  with  the  conduct  and  expansion  of  their 
business  interests;  and  the  conscience  of  the  class  to  which 
they  belong  makes  them  infuse  into  their  children  very  defi- 

[338] 


ECONOMIC  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS 

nite  ideas  about  the  responsibilities  of  rich  men  to  the  sources 
of  their  wealth.  Many  of  these  children  are  carefully  and 
elaborately  trained  from  childhood  for  the  purpose  of  giv- 
ing them  the  information  and  good  judgment  necessary  to 
the  protection  and  increase  of  so  much  wealth,  and  the 
strongest  efforts  are  made,  and  successfully  made,  as  in  the 
cases  of  the  Vanderbilts  and  the  Goulds,  to  keep  the  family 
properties  and  interests  together  under  one  central  manage- 
ment— no  matter  among  how  many  descendants  the  actual 
ownership  may  be  divided. 

It  remains  true,  moreover,  that  no  other  career  except  a 
business  career  is  open  to  an  energetic,  ambitious,  and  rich 
young  American.  He  generally  avoids  politics,  because  of 
the  extreme  difficulty  of  learning  the  political  game  and  of 
obtaining  any  political  standing — except  by  the  use  of  money. 
The  civil  service,  the  army,  and  the  navy,  which  attract  so 
many  well-to-do  Englishmen,  are  in  this  country  filled  with 
poor  men;  and  the  professions,  also,  rarely  offer  many  attrac- 
tions for  young  fellows  who  are  not  dependent  on  their  own 
exertions.  Business  is  always  the  easy,  almost  the  inevitable 
career,  and  largely  because,  as  we  have  already  noticed, 
there  is  comparatively  little  miscellaneous  intercommunica- 
tion among  the  different  layers  of  American  society.  The 
rich  men  form  a  distinct  and  self-perpetuating  set,  who  pos- 
sess certain  ideals  as  to  the  moral  desirability  of  an  active 
business  life  and  the  moral  danger  of  merely  elegant  inac- 

[343] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

tion,  and  who  are  doing  their  best  to  have  their  children 
inherit  both  their  interests  and  their  standards  and  manner 
of  life. 

That  they  will  succeed,  however,  in  keeping  all  their 
children  at  work  is  not  to  be  expected.  In  every  family 
which  contains  three  or  four  boys,  one  or  two  of  them  will 
revolt  against  the  confinements  of  business  life  and  will  pre- 
fer to  accept  the  income  he  has,  rather  than  give  up  the  best 
of  his  life  to  the  work  of  increasing  it;  and  during  the  past 
six  or  seven  years  the  influence  of  this  disposition  to  abandon 
the  game  and  to  spend  the  winnings  has  had  a  peculiarly 
important  effect  upon  our  domestic  architecture.  The  rich 
young  American  of  good  instincts  who  deserts  the  family 
office  generally  jumps  to  the  opposite  extreme  and  takes  up 
with  practically  useless  occupations.  He  becomes  interested 
chiefly  in  pursuits  that  are  peculiarly  their  own  reward  and 
justification.  He  becomes,  that  is,  either  or  both  athletic 
and  esthetic;  and  both  of  these  pursuits  tend  to  make  him 
divide  much  of  his  time  between  European  cities  and  the 
American  country.  In  particular  he  wants  a  large  country 
house  in  which  to  entertain,  big  stables  and  barns  to  hold 
his  horses  and  stock,  and  in  general  all  the  paraphernalia 
and  appurtenances  of  a  country  gentleman's  residence.  This 
is  the  sort  of  life  which  the  corresponding  class  in  England 
has  identified  with  itself,  and  there  is  every  indication  that 
rich  and  leisured  Americans  will  follow  in  the  same  course. 

[344] 


ECONOMIC  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS 

With  the  growth  of  leisure  will  come  a  great  increase  in  the 
desire  to  entertain  on  a  large  scale,  and  consequently  also  in 
the  facilities  for  entertainment.  The  American  house-party 
will  become  as  elaborate  and  definite  a  function  as  the  Eng- 
lish house-party,  but  for  a  number  of  reasons  fewer  people 
will  participate  in  it  and  the  gatherings  will  last  for  a  longer 
time.  The  rich  American  of  leisure  will,  however,  prob- 
ably have  much  livelier  esthetic  interests  than  the  rich  Eng- 
lishman of  leisure,  because  American  culture  always  seems 
to  take  a  much  more  consciously  esthetic  direction.  They 
are  inveterate  builders,  are  these  American  millionaires. 
What  with  the  six  or  seven  great  New  York  houses  of  the 
Vanderbilt  family,  and  their  still  larger*  number  of  country 
estates,  it  could  be  plausibly  argued  that  among  them  they 
have  invested  as  much  money  in  the  erection  of  dwellings  as 
any  of  the  royal  families  of  Europe,  the  Bourbons  excepted. 
Doubtless,  also,  other  similar  families  have  failed  to  do  as 
well  chiefly  because  there  were  fewer  children  and  less 
money.  But  in  the  course  of  time  other  families  will  suc- 
ceed in  doing  quite  as  well  because  the  passion  for  building 
is  almost  universal  among  Americans.  Moreover,  the  fam- 
ily property  is  much  better  distributed  than  it  is  in  England, 
and  this  wider  distribution  permits  the  younger  members  of 
the  family  to  set  up  for  themselves.  One  or  two  family 
residences  are  not  enough.  There  must  be  as  many  of  them 
almost  as  there  are  uncles  and  nephews,  and  they  will  mul- 

[347] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

tiply  even  as  the  uncles  and  nephews  are  multiplied.  In 
spite  of  the  great  rapidity  with  which  they  have  been  erected 
recently  their  number  is  not  as  yet  in  the  aggregate  very 
great,  and  the  coming  generation  will  build  three  or  four  to 
every  one  which  the  present  generation  has  built. 


[348] 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 
ITS    EXTERIOR 


CHAPTER    VII 
Ci^e  ^ohtm  american  meisiDence— 31t0  (Bvtttiov 

[HE  opportunity  now  being  offered  to  the 
American  architect  to  design  handsome 
dwellings  is,  as  we  have  said,  extraordi- 
nary; but  before  describing  the  result  and 
estimating  its  value,  we  must  take  some 
account  also  of  the  disadvantages  under  which  he  suffers. 
It  is,  undoubtedly,  in  some  respects  very  pleasant  for  him 
to  have  men  for  clients  who  treat  him  as  an  expert  with 
acknowledged  rights,  and  who  allow  him  to  do,  within  cer- 
tain limits,  very  much  as  he  pleases;  but  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  the  very  freedom  with  which  he  is  endowed 
testifies  to  somewhat  restless  social  conditions  and  to  an 
absence  of  guiding  esthetic  traditions  that  impair  the  value 
of  his  best  efforts.  A  dwelling  derives  its  fairest  chance  of 
beauty  from  the  congruity  with  which  it  expresses  a  certain 
definite  and  distinguished  kind  of  life — whether  of  a  class 
or  of  an  individual;  and  the  life  of  a  modern  American 
business  man,  whatever  its  merits,  is  certainly  lacking  in 
•distinction.     It  does   not  possess   in   Itself  that  seemly  and 

[351] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

permanent  character  around  which  any  really  appropriate 
domestic  forms  can  be  grouped.  Even  the  less  business- 
like occupations  of  the  younger  American  are  similarly  lack- 
ing in  repose  and  distinction.  We  Americans  are  too 
officious  even  about  our  diversions;  and  the  appropriate 
habitation  for  a  contemporary  house-party,  far  from  consist- 
ing of  a  series  of  well-fashioned  rooms,  would  consist  rather 
of  a  casino  with  billiard  and  card  tables,  bowling-alleys,  a 
tank,  and  a  tennis-court  as  the  chief  items  of  its  equipment. 
The  office  and  the  play-room  symbolize  the  two  character- 
istic and  natural  extremes  of  American  life. 

That  our  greater  modern  dwellings,  starting  with  this 
initial  disadvantage,  should  not  only  as  a  rule  escape  the 
danger  of  being  vulgar,  but  should  possess  as  many  merits 
and  as  much  propriety  as  they  do,  is  best  possible  testimony 
to  the  consciousness  which  our  countrymen  show  of  their 
own  deficiencies.  Since  the  architects  are  unable  to  give 
their  clients  houses  that  are  eminently  and  inevitably  suit- 
able, they  must  fall  back  upon  providing  for  their  clients 
houses  which,  even  if  unsuitable,  are  good  in  themselves 
and  valuable  as  models.  That  their  clients  agree  to  this  in- 
insidious  method  of  education,  and  that  the  outcome  has  a 
kind  of  forced  and  anomalous  propriety,  we  have  already 
sufficiently  explained;  but  this  incursion  of  educational  mo- 
tives into  a  region  which  should  have  left  the  school-house 
far  behind,  places  the  American  architect  in  an  awkward 

[352] 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 

position.  He  is  both  too  responsible  as  a  teacher  and  too 
irresponsible  as  an  artist.  With  no  definite  local  traditions 
to  guide  him  and  in  general  but  few  really  respectable  per- 
sonal demands  to  satisfy — except  the  demand  that  the  plan 
be  convenient  and  the  effect  rich  and  striking — he  is  natu- 
rally somewhat  at  a  loss  to  find  the  really  best  models;  and 
it  is  not  surprising  that  he  continues  to  vacillate  among  the 
historic  domestic  styles.  He  is  experimenting  almost  as 
continuously  as  the  less-instructed  architect  of  twenty  years 
ago,  only  he  is  experimenting  more  intelligently  and  with 
a  better  sense  of  esthetic  efifect. 

This  statement  is  true  both  of  his  city  and  his  country 
houses.  In  the  larger  cities,  like  New  York,  the  monotony 
which  prevailed  in  the  appearance  of  private  dwellings  for 
fifty  years  has  been  superseded  by  the  utmost  variety  both 
of  material  and  design.  Indeed,  many  of  the  old  brown- 
stone  dwellings  are  reconstructed,  partly  for  the  purpose  of 
securing  more  convenient  internal  planning,  but  also  partly 
for  the  purpose  of  setting  them  up  architecturally  for 
themselves. 

The  houses  that  are  reconstructed  are  no  longer  built  in 
rows.  Even  when  they  are  erected  by  speculative  builders, 
three  or  four  at  a  time,  each  house  claims  the  distinction  of 
an  individual  design.  Moreover,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  this  claim  is  frequently  made  in  the  most  deliberate 
and  pretentious  manner.     Whatever  such  a  house  may  be,  it 

[355] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

must  at  any  rate  be  different.  It  is  as  if  New  York  domes- 
tic architecture,  after  submitting  tamely  for  a  generation 
and  a  half  to  the  most  distressing  and  lugubrious  uniform- 
ity, had  now  decided  to  practise  and  enjoy  the  utmost 
possible  limit  of  esthetic  freedom.  All  conventions  in  the 
matter  have  been  cast  aside.  It  seems  settled  that  for  a  while 
New  York  shall  symbolize  in  the  design  of  its  private  dwell- 
ings the  incoherent  multiplicity  of  its  origins.  It  may  be 
that  in  the  course  of  time  some  desirable  convention  will  be 
developed;  but  as  yet  this  consummation  is  remote.  Neither 
structure,  nor  prevailing  taste,  nor  the  use  of  the  same 
dimensions,  bring  with  it  any  significant  similarity  of  de- 
sign. The  phrase  "  The  Art  Gallery  of  the  New  York 
Streets  "  has  been  used  to  describe  the  impression  produced 
by  the  handsomest  residential  section;  and  it  would  be  hard 
to  find  a  better  descriptive  phrase.  The  new  designs  stand 
out  like  pictures  against  the  brownstone  background,  and 
like  easel  pictures  hung  in  a  gallery  they  produce  the  effect 
of  irresponsible  self-satisfaction.  They  look  as  if  they  were 
intended  for  no  particular  place,  as  if  they  were  wholly  in- 
different to  their  neighbors,  as  if  they  were  expressive  of 
no  structural  fact,  as  if  they  were  independent  of  all  local 
precedent,  and  as  if  they  had  escaped  from  any  formative 
influence,  except  the  knowledge  and  the  taste  of  their 
architects. 

Fortunately  the  knowledge,  skill,  and  taste  of  the  archl- 

[356] 


New  York  City.  McKim,    Mead  &   White,    Architects. 

HALL     MANTELPIECE    IN    THE    RESIDENCE    OF    HENRY    W.    POOR. 


New    York   City.  McKim,    Mead   &   White,    Architects. 

A   DRAWING-ROOM    MANTELPIECE  IN  THE   RESIDENCE  OF   HENRY  W.    POOR. 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 

tects  are  sometimes  conspicuously  present.  The  best  of  them 
are  thoroughly  competent  designers,  the  average  of  whose 
work  is  lowered  by  the  fact  that  they  have  too  much  to  do, 
but  who  almost  always  exhibit  in  their  designs  an  easy 
familiarity  with  good  forms  and  a  well-trained  intelligence 
in  using  them.  They  have  been  brought  up  in  a  good 
school;  they  have  participated  architecturally  in  good  so- 
ciety. The  proportions,  so  far  as  they  can  control  them,  the 
spacing  and  the  masses  of  their  buildings  are  well  consid- 
ered; the  materials  are  frequently  well  selected,  and  they 
have  a  number  of  very  excellent  and  comparatively  new 
materials,  such  as  Harvard  brick,  at  their  disposal.  After  a 
tour  among  their  buildings  one  gets  thoroughly  the  impres- 
sion that,  however  much  they  may  lack  positive  originality 
and  force,  they  embody  an  excellent  and  formative  technical 
tradition.  Indeed,  one  may  go  further  and  attribute  to  the 
very  best  of  them  a  faint  renewal  of  the  architectural  spirit 
of  the  Renaissance,  both  in  its  strength  and  its  weakness. 
The  better  American  architect  has  the  same  dependence  on 
the  past,  the  same  indisposition  to  bother  about  structural 
consistency,  but  he  also  has  a  touch  of  the  same  artistic  pas- 
sion, an  occasional  trace  of  the  same  easy  mastery  over  the 
borrowed  forms  he  uses,  a  suggestion  of  the  same  refine- 
ment and  charm  in  the  effects  he  obtains. 

The  defects  of  the  better  American  architects  derive  at 
least  in  part  from  the  fact  that,  while  they  have  learned 

[361] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

from  their  masters  and  their  predecessors,  they  decline  to 
learn  as  much  as  they  should  from  each  other.  All  of  the 
larger  offices  have  developed  more  or  less  distinctive  office 
styles,  which  constitute  in  some  measure  their  architectural 
trade-mark,  and  which  attract  or  repel  prospective  builders; 
and  the  tendency  consequently  is,  particularly  since  all  these 
big  offices  generally  have  more  buildings  on  their  boards 
than  the  members  of  the  firm  have  the  time  themselves  to 
design — the  tendency  is  to  have  this  office  style  somewhat 
mechanically  reproduced.  In  this  way  the  very  fact  that  so 
many  architectural  opportunities  are  afforded  to  the  pro- 
fession impairs  the  merit  of  the  results.  American  archi- 
tecture would  probably  have  more  character  in  case  Amer- 
ican architects  had  less  to  do,  and  there  would  be  more 
chance  also  in  that  case  for  the  quicker  development  of  a 
desirable  local  convention. 

It  is  difficult  at  any  rate  to  trace  even  the  beginning  of 
a  trusted  and  trustworthy  convention  in  the  exterior  of  the 
large  contemporary  city  dwelling.  So  far  as  the  largest 
houses  are  concerned,  both  in  city  and  country,  there  have 
been  made  occasional  attempts  to  use  the  domestic  style  of 
the  French  Renaissance  as  the  most  acceptable  model  for  a 
"  palatial  "  dwelling.  The  two  houses  erected  early  in  the 
eighties  on  Fifth  Avenue  for  William  K.  and  the  late  Cor- 
nelius Vanderbilt  were  both  of  them  modified  French  cha- 
teaux; and  this  example  has  been  followed  in  one  or  two 

[  362  ] 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN   RESIDENCE 

conspicuous  instances  farther  up  the  avenue.  Of  late  years, 
however,  during  which  a  very  large  number  of  expensive 
dwellings  have  been  erected  in  New  York  City,  the  only 
important  instance  in  which  a  similar  model  has  been 
adopted  is  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Charles  M.  Schwab's  house 
now  being  erected  on  Riverside  Drive.  The  fashion,  so  far 
as  there  is  any,  runs  in  two  directions.  Contemporary 
Parisian  architecture  is,  on  the  one  hand,  being  freely 
adapted  to  the  different  proportions  of  the  private  dwelling, 
while,  on  the  other,  there  is  use  of,  for  comparatively 
modest  houses,  a  distinct  revival  in  the  use  of  brick  as  a 
material,  together  with  a  very  remote  colonialism  in  design. 
This  second  tendency  prevails  much  more  in  the  vicinity  of 
Boston  than  it  does  in  that  of  New  York;  but  it  is  being 
used  in  the  metropolis  also  by  several  well-known  firms. 
It  is  employed,  however,  frequently  with  a  certain  French 
smartness  and  precision  which  is  very  different  from  the 
spirit  of  the  older  buildings,  and  it  obtains  a  character  of 
its  own  from  the  fact  that  stone  is  nearly  always  used  in  the 
lowest  division  of  the  design. 

It  is  probable  that  this  increased  use  of  brick,  with  a 
stone  base  and  trimmings,  is  the  most  sensible  tendency 
which  the  design  of  comparatively  narrow  city  houses  is 
exhibiting;  but  at  best  the  outlook  for  the  relatively  small, 
though  still  expensive,  city  dwelling  is  not  very  encouraging. 

New  York  is  particularly  the  city  in  which  the  expen- 

[  365  ] 


STATELY  HOMES   IN   AMERICA 

sive  urban  residence  is  being  built  in  large  numbers  and  on 
a  lavish  scale;  but  it  is  also  the  city  in  which  the  conditions 
under  which  the  exteriors  of  these  buildings  are  designed 
are  extremely  unsatisfactory.  The  constantly  increasing 
value  of  land  in  the  really  fashionable  district  has  placed 
any  but  a  very  small  lot  beyond  the  reach  of  any  but  an 
extremely  rich  person.  A  well-situated  site  measuring  25 
X  100  costs  anywhere  from  $70,000  to  $200,000,  according 
to  the  desirability  of  the  location;  and  as  the  cost  of  the 
house  duplicates  the  cost  of  the  land,  it  follows  that  $150,000 
would  be  the  smallest  sum  at  which  a  really  modern  house 
can  be  obtained  within  a  block  or  two  of  the  residence  por- 
tions of  Fifth  Avenue,  while  on  the  avenue  double  that 
money  would  scarcely  suffice.  This  high  value  of  land  has 
forced  people  to  build  very  ill-proportioned  and  in  some 
respects  very  inconvenient  houses.  Whereas  formerly  four 
stories  constituted  pretty  well  the  limit  of  height,  now  they 
are  becoming  five,  six,  and  even  seven  stories  high.  As  a 
consequence  of  this  height  the  internal  machinery  of  these 
buildings  becomes  immensely  more  complicated.  One  or 
more  automatic  electric  elevators  is  provided;  the  heating 
apparatus  is  bulky  and  occupies  a  great  deal  of  the  sub- 
basement;  the  hot-water  supply  of  houses  that  contain  any- 
where from  five  to  fifteen  bath-rooms  has  to  be  enormous; 
and  the  internal  telephone  system  is  comparable  to  nothing 
less  than  that  of  a  hotel.     To  design  an  acceptable  facade 

[  366  ] 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 

for  a  building  which  is  at  most  forty  feet  wide  and  five  or 
six  stories  high  is  almost  impossible.  Many  ingenious  and 
interesting  attempts  have  been  made,  but  no  one  has  yet  suc- 
ceeded in  really  incorporating  in  the  design  the  top  story. 
The  depth  of  these  houses  is,  moreover,  the  source  of  almost 
as  much  of  a  practical  as  the  height  is  an  esthetic  stum- 
bling-block. Fully  three-quarters  of  the  lot  is  covered  by 
the  building,  in  order  to  get  as  much  area  as  possible  out  of 
the  narrow  dimensions,  and  the  architect  is  confronted  by 
the  impossible  problem  of  providing  the  middle  rooms  of  a 
house  seventy-five  feet  deep,  that  has  access  to  the  air  only 
on  the  back  and  front,  with  any  sufficient  light. 

Be  it  added  that,  while  the  reconstruction  which  the 
fashionable  residential  district  of  New  York  is  now  under- 
going has  been  largely  prompted  by  changes  in  esthetic 
standards,  the  better  residential  architecture  of  the  city  has 
not  yet  been  emancipated  from  the  baleful  influence  of  the 
speculative  builder.  A  very  large  proportion  of  the  most 
expensive  dwellings  in  the  city,  dwellings  which  in  several 
cases  have  sold  for  as  much  as  $500,000,  are  still  erected  by 
these  ubiquitous  and  "  up-to-date "  operators.  They  have 
been  known  occasionally  to  employ  the  very  best  architects 
to  design  their  buildings;  but  usually  they  have  merely  made 
incoherent  and  wild  attempts  to  imitate  certain  good  types 
of  design,  with  the  result  of  vulgarizing  the  whole  general 
appearance  of  the  New  York  residential  architecture  in  the 

[369] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

fashionable  district.  There  could  not  be  a  better  illustra- 
tion of  the  absence  of  strong  individual  requirements  on  the 
part  of  the  purchasers  of  expensive  dwellings  than  the  fact 
that  they  will  buy  houses  which  are  built  to  suit  anybody — 
who  has  the  necessary  money.  The  result  of  it  all  is  that, 
notwithstanding  the  excellence  of  certain  selected  facades 
and  the  enormously  increased  interest  which  our  modern 
New  York  domestic  architecture  legitimately  inspires,  the 
general  result  is  somewhat  depressing,  and  in  view^  of  the 
difficulties  under  the  most  favorable  conditions  of  obtaining 
a  satisfactory  effect  in  the  design  of  a  small  slice  of  a  large 
and  rebellious  block,  some  of  the  architects,  who  get  the 
very  cream  of  this  class  of  work,  do  not  bother  at  all  about 
the  exteriors.  In  the  cases  of  three  of  the  houses  in  New 
York  which  during  recent  years  have  been  successfully  re- 
constructed— those  of  William  C.  Whitney,  Henry  W.  Poor, 
and  Stanford  White — the  old  brownstone  exteriors,  except 
for  a  change  in  the  location  and  appearance  of  the  entrance, 
have  been  left  unaltered,  and  the  taste  and  skill  of  the 
designer  have  been  devoted  exclusively  to  the  making  of  a 
*'  stunning  "  interior. 

The  domestic  architecture  of  a  people  inevitably  finds  its 
best  expression  in  its  country  houses,  for  it  is  possible  to 
make  a  country  house  both  complete  and  individual,  whereas 
the  design  of  a  city  house  is  necessarily  mutilated.  There 
have  been  in  the  past  city  houses  that  were  individual  and 

[  370  ] 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 

complete,  as  well  as  being  architecturally  very  impressive, 
but  generally  these  city  dwellings,  such,  for  instance,  as  the 
Maison  de  Cluny  in  Paris,  or  the  palaces  in  the  Italian 
cities,  were  partly  surrounded  by  open  grounds;  and  when 
this  was  not  the  case,  the  site  was  much  more  spacious  than 
the  New  York  architect  can  hope  to  control  except  in  rare 
instances.  It  is  very  probable,  however,  that  the  conditions 
under  which  these  city  houses  are  designed  will  in  the  course 
of  time  be  improved,  for  the  quicker  means  of  communica- 
tion, both  public  and  private,  will  enable  people  to  live  a 
greater  distance  from  the  center  of  business,  while  the  cen- 
ter of  business  itself  will  claim  for  its  imperative  needs  large 
areas  in  the  inner  circle  now  devoted  to  residence.  Thus 
the  greater  city  residence  will  tend  to  become  suburban,  and 
so  to  approximate  to  a  country  type,  while  at  the  same  time 
there  is  destined  to  be  an  enormous  increase  in  the  number 
of  country  houses  proper. 

The  first  of  the  modern  American  country  houses  were 
villas,  and  generally  seaside  villas.  Even  during  the  middle 
period  Boston  people  had  built  thickly  along  the  north  shore 
of  Massachusetts,  but  it  was  not  until  after  1880  that  well- 
to-do  New  Yorkers  began  to  make  "  settlements "  in  the 
country.  The  first  and  most  conspicuous  of  these  settle- 
ments was,  of  course,  Newport,  which  had  a  certain  promi- 
nence even  in  the  seventies;  but  less  important  gatherings 
at  Elberon,  on  various  parts  of  Long  Island,   and  at  Bar 

[  375  ] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

Harbor  soon  followed.  Almost  contemporaneous  with  the 
building  up  of  the  seashore  "  colonies  "  villas  began  also  to 
be  grouped  at  various  inland  resorts,  such  as  the  Berkshires 
and,  later,  Tuxedo.  In  the  beginning,  of  course,  there  was 
nothing  "  palatial  "  about  these  villas.  They  were  simple- 
frame  houses,  built  as  a  rule  exclusively  for  summer  resi- 
dence, very  spacious,  pretty  much  surrounded  by  verandas, 
and  eminently  pleasant  and  comfortable.  Architecturally 
they  were  generally  influenced  by  what  wa"§  left  of  the 
"Queen  Anne"  movement;  but  they  really  belonged  to  no 
previous  type  of  country  house.  In  many  cases  they  were 
decidedly  original.  Everything  about  them,  but  in  particu- 
lar the  largely  wooden  construction,  encouraged  freedom  of 
treatment.  In  fact  a  deliberate  irregularity,  breaking  out 
into  bay-windows,  towers,  and  all  kinds  of  projections,  was 
the  key-note  of  this  type  of  design,  and  the  results  were,  in 
many  cases,  highly  picturesque  and  charming.  Apprecia- 
tion is  particularly  due  to  some  of  the  rambling,  unpreten- 
tious shingled  houses,  designed  by  McKim,  Mead,  and 
White,  the  late  Bruce  Price,  and  the  late  Richard  M.  Hunt. 
It  has  even  been  held  that  these  buildings  show  something 
more  than  certain  distinct  and  pleasant  individual  qualities 
of  design,  that  they  exhibited  characteristics  which,  if  de- 
veloped, might  have  been  the  basis  of  an  interesting  and 
vernacular  local  type  of  dwelling;  but  the  fact  that  later 
they  were  both  disowned  by  their  authors  and  disregarded 

[376] 


^11^ 


''^L^^^'r    ^:'?-jaiii 


■ww«i.  B 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 

by  the  profession  at  large  in  favor  of  a  renewed  experimen- 
tation in  historic  styles,  indicates  that  they  failed  to  satisfy 
current  esthetic  standards  and  current  practical  needs. 

In  truth  these  early  villas  were  in  effect  wooden  build- 
ings, even  when  other  materials  were  partly  used;  and  the 
time  was  coming  when  wood  was  to  be  finally  abandoned 
as  the  material  out  of  which  the  greater  American  country 
residence  was  to  be  constructed.  As  wealth  increased,  and 
its  possessors  became  accustomed .  to  its  possession  and  real- 
ized the  opportunities  it  offered  to  them,  the  demand  for  a 
more  imposing  type  of  residence  immediately  set  in;  and  a 
more  imposing  residence  necessarily  meant  the  use  of  stone 
or  brick — the  really  structural  materials.  The  "  villa  "  had 
to  become,  if  not  "  massive,"  at  least  substantial  and  impres- 
sive, and  the  prevailing  shingled  houses  were  neither  sub- 
stantial nor  impressive.  Houses  such  as  "  Ochre  Court " 
and  the  "  Breakers  "  matched,  so  far  as  the  country  was  con- 
cerned, the  palatial  chateaux  which  at  about  the  same  time 
were  beginning  to  be  erected  on  Fifth  Avenue.  The  tend- 
ency to  erect  these  more  substantial  dwellings  was  a  re- 
markable evidence  of  the  interest  in  the  country  which 
was  more  than  ever  being  aroused.  Once  rich  families  had 
tasted  the  wholesome  satisfaction  of  owning  and  occupying 
country  houses  they  became  fairly  fascinated  by  it,  and  soon 
made  up  their  minds  to  do  the  thing  well. 

It  followed  that  the  country  houses  which  were  erected 

[379] 


STATELY  HOMES   IN  AMERICA 

became  much  more  varied  in  plan,  location,  and  function. 
They  continued  all  to  be  villas,  for  a  villa  is,  in  its  widest 
definition,  a  country  residence  occupied  by  city  people. 
These  "  city  people  "  may  make  the  country  residence  their 
home  for  the  large  part  of  the  year,  yet  if  they  do  not  live  on 
the  country,  if  they  are  not  dependent  on  its  produce  for  main- 
tenance, their  country  house  becomes  in  a  very  real  sense  a 
villa.  They  are  independent  of  the  economic  conditions  and 
restrictions  of  a  farmer's  business,  and  are  living  as  and 
vs'^here  they  do  merely  for  their  own  satisfaction  and  pleasure. 
In  this  sense  all  of  our  greater  rural  residences  are  villas,  for 
they  are  all  occupied  by  people  who,  no  matter  how  varied 
and  sincere  their  interest  in  their  country  places,  spend  their 
money  upon  the  land  without  any  reference  to  making  money 
out  of  it.  But  whereas  the  earlier  country  houses  were 
villas,  in  the  more  restricted  sense  of  being  rather  fragile 
structures,  intended  only  for  temporary  summer  residence, 
the  newer  ones  were  intended  partly  at  least  for  winter  habi- 
tation, and  were  sometimes  even  occupied  for  a  large  part 
of  the  year.  They  were  situated,  however,  for  the  most  part 
in  locations  that  were  accessible  from  New  York  and  could 
be  reached  in  a  few  hours.  The  men  of  the  family  were 
rarely  able  to  pass  more  than  the  week's  end  at  their  houses. 
Indeed,  the  American  millionaire  seldom  remains  for  a  very 
long  time  at  any  one  place.  He  is  a  restless  person,  both 
whose  inclinations  and  whose  interests  lead  him  to  inhabit 

[380] 


Lakewood   kesideiice  of  George   Gould.  Bruce   Price,    Architect. 

ANOTHER     VIEW    OF    "GEORGIAN    COURT." 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 

for  a  large  part  of  his  time  that  most  appropriate  and  lux- 
urious of  his  habitations — the  private  car;  and  he  will  fre- 
quently maintain  several  large  and  expensive  establishments 
for  the  pleasure  of  using  them  only  during  a  few  weeks  of 
the  year. 

Recently,  however,  a  type  of  house  has  been  built  which, 
while  it  still  remains  a  villa,  approximates  in  many  respects 
to  the  family  seat  of  an  English  country  gentleman,  and  is 
the  product  not  merely  of  wealth,  but  of  leisure.  The  most 
conspicuous  instance  of  this  type  of  place  is  Mr.  George 
Vanderbilt's  country  house  and  estate  in  North  Carolina — 
"  Biltmore  " ;  but  the  same  sort  of  thing  is  being  frequently 
done  all  over  the  East.  *'  Biltmore  "  differs  radically  from 
the  Newport  villas  or  Long  Island  estates,  because  it  has 
been  planned  for  itself  and  irrespective  of  the  convenience 
of  an  active  business  man's  life. 

It  is  not  situated  near  New  York,  so  that  its  owner  can 
go  quickly  to  and  fro;  it  is  not  designed  merely  as  the  occa- 
sional residence  of  a  man  who  only  sojourns  from  Saturday 
to  Monday  in  his  own  house,  and  who  is  satisfied  with  a  big 
veranda  and  a  view.  It  has  been  laid  out  as  the  country 
home  of  a  cultivated  gentleman  who  has  the  use  of  his  own 
time,  who  wants  to  build  up  an  all-around  country  place, 
and  who  has  all  the  time  and  money  he  needs  in  which  to 
do  it.  Of  course  the  cultivated  gentleman  is  still  essentially 
of  the  city,  and  is  so  independent  of  practical  obligations  to 

[383] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

the  soil  that  in  a  characteristically  American  fashion  he  can 
use  his  estate  as  a  school  of  forestry.  Nevertheless,  it  is  the 
residence  of  a  man  who  goes  to  the  country  for  something 
more  than  relaxation  and  exercise,  and  whose  example  will 
be  as  useful  to  other  people  as  to  himself.  That  is  the  kind 
of  country  dwelling  of  which  we  need  to  see  more,  of  which 
we  are  seeing  more,  and  of  which  we  are  destined  to  see  a 
great  deal  more. 

We  have  stated  that  the  architects  much  prefer  the  de- 
signing of  country  to  city  residences,  because  they  can  the 
more  control  the  surrounding  conditions  which  contribute 
to  the  effect  of  the  country  house.  While  this  is  undoubt- 
edly true,  yet  at  the  best  their  control  of  these  natural  con- 
ditions is  far  from  what  they  would  like,  and  rather  helps 
to  expose  than  disguise  the  necessarily  experimental  and 
ready-made  character  of  their  work.  The  stone  surface  of 
a  city  house  soon  weathers,  and  begins  after  ten  years  or  so 
to  wear  the  aspect  of  age;  and  in  the  interiors,  of  course, 
w^hat  with  the  faded  fabrics  and  the  rich,  time-worn  texture 
of  the  old  woods,  the  "  tone  of  time  "  can  be  almost  per- 
fectly obtained;  but  there  is  no  way  of  hurrying  up  the  cor- 
responding process  of  natural  growth.  Nature  will  not 
bestow  the  "  tone  of  time  "  on  the  surroundings  of  houses 
which  were  built  only  yesterday. 

The  planting,  which  must  be  arranged  rather  with  a 
view  to   its  ultimate  than   its   immediate  effect,   necessarily 

[384] 


Lakewood   Residence  ot   George  Gould.  Bruce   Price,    Architect. 

STAIRWAY    OF    "GEORGIAN    COURT." 


Lakewood  Residence  of  George  Gould.  Bruce  Price,   Architect. 

DINING-ROOM    OF    "  GEORGIAN    COURT." 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN   RESIDENCE 

fails  to  rise  to  the  architectural  opportunity;  and  no  matter 
how  admirably  the  design  is  suited  to  the  location,  the  loca- 
tion can  not  be  suited  to  the  design  without  the  expenditure 
of  much  time  as  well  as  much  money.  Yet  it  is  this  suita- 
bility which  the  eye  and  the  mind  both  desire  more  than 
anything  else  in  respect  to  a  country  house,  and  which  un- 
fortunately is  as  yet  almost  entirely  lacking  in  the  American 
country  building,  whether  it  be  a  farmhouse  or  a  chateau. 

It  is  because  the  English  country  places  are  a  more  natu- 
ral growth,  extending  through  several  centuries  of  time, 
that  we  instinctively  associate  them  with  our  mental  pictures 
of  what  we  should  like  a  country  place  to  be.  The  char- 
acter and  charm  of  English  rural  domestic  architecture  is 
due  chiefly  to  the  fact  that  for  several  hundred  years  there 
has  been  resident  on  the  English  soil  a  class  of  well-to-do 
and  well-educated  country  gentlemen,  whose  interests  and 
affections  were  centered  around  their  country-seats,  and  who, 
generation  after  generation,  have  spent  their  money  upon 
the  improvements  of  their  houses  and  grounds.  In  their 
employment  of  architectural  forms  the  English  have  gen- 
erally been  less  skilful  and  less  original  than  the  French  and 
the  Italians;  and  during  large  parts  of  the  last  four  hundred 
years  they  have  been  almost  as  imitative  in  their  architecture 
as  we  are  at  present.  Except  the  cases  of  the  early  Tudor, 
Elizabethan,  and  Jacobean  buildings,  the  beauty  of  English 
domestic  rural  architecture  is  rarely  derived  from  the  excel- 

[389] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

lence  or  originality  of  the  design,  or  even  from  the  way  in 
which  the  designs  have  been  deliberately  fitted  to  their 
natural  surroundings.  It  is  rather  that,  by  force  of  continual 
grading,  planting,  and  tending,  the  natural  surroundings 
have  gradually  grown  up  to  and  around  the  house;  and  the 
value  of  this  effect  is  much  increased  by  the  peculiar  quality 
of  the  English  landscape — by  the  moderately  human  scale  of 
its  outlines  and  masses,  by  the  rich  greens  of  its  vegetation, 
and  by  the  way  in  which  the  evidence  of  loving  and  intelli- 
gent human  handiwork  has  been  woven  into  its  fabric. 
Such  are  the  tremendous  advantages  that  English  domestic 
architecture  has  had  over  that  of  Italy  or  France  or  Ger- 
many. Besides  the  possession  of  a  resident  landed  aristoc- 
racy and  a  landscape  that  was  throughout  well  composed 
and  well  tended,  it  has  been  able  to  turn  its  opportunities  to 
good  account  and  to  preserve  its  achievements,  because  its 
country  has  never  during  that  period  been  desolated  by  for- 
eign invasion,  and  because  its  political  and  social  history 
has  been  comparatively  free  from  violent  disturbances  and 
breaches  of  continuity. 

But,  as  we  have  already  intimated,  these  peculiar  advan- 
tages of  English  rural  architecture  are  really  inimitable. 
Of  course  there  is  no  lack  of  natural  beauty  in  the  American 
landscape,  and  there  are  parts,  particularly  of  New  England, 
the  masses  and  outlines  of  which  are  scaled  to  human  habi- 
tation and  which  have  been  cleared  just  sufficiently  to  pre- 

[390] 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 

sent  an  effective  alternation  of  open  and  wooded  surfaces. 
But  even  the  most  habitable  American  country  has  not  been 
so  intelligently  and  consistently  humanized  as  has  the  greater 
part  of  England;  and  it  is  entirely  impossible  within  a  few 
years  to  build  up  the  immediate  surroundings  of  country 
houses  so  that  the  architecture  settles  down  harmoniously 
into  the  landscape.  Even  as  regards  the  comparatively  few 
instances  in  which  colonial  country  houses  and  gardens  have 
survived,  they  have  not  been  continually  improved  and  made 
more  beautiful,  but  have,  as  often  as  not,  been  allowed  to 
deteriorate;  and  it  will  take  several  generations  of  continued 
interest  in  country  life  before  the  initial  proprieties  of  our 
rural  domestic  architecture  can  approach  those  of  England. 
If  the  effect  of  the  American  country  place  is  impaired 
by  the  undeveloped  condition  of  its  surroundings,  the  archi- 
tects are,  of  course,  fully  alive  to  the  deficiency,  and  are  now 
preparing  for  the  time  when  they  can  count  upon  the  assist- 
ance of  twenty-five  years  of  natural  growth.  The  large 
country  place  has  necessarily  brought  with  it  both  a  new 
interest  in  landscape  architecture  and  a  new  outlook  upon  it. 
Under  the  mid-century  conditions  there  was  practically  no 
landscape  architecture.  There  was,  of  course,  a  prevalent 
method  of  treating  the  grounds  around  a  house,  which  was 
derived  from  the  English  school  of  natural  gardening,  and 
which  in  its  application  to  an  American  country  house  merely 
meant  a  big  expanse  of  lawn,  no  straight  lines,  and  an  occa- 

[  393  ] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

sional  shrub  or  tree.  What  flowers  there  were  were  grown 
as  a  rule  in  circular  beds  or  borders  near  the  house.  This 
application  of  the  principles  of  "  natural  "  landscape  design 
did  as  much  injustice  to  that  method  of  design  as  the  "  mas- 
sive "  Italian  villas  did  to  the  best  Italian  rural  architecture; 
but,  such  as  it  was,  it  prevailed  almost  completely.  Further- 
more, during  the  beginning  of  the  modern  period,  while  the 
shingled  villas  were  being  erected,  no  change  took  place  in 
this  respect,  because  the  acreage  of  land  on  which  the  houses 
were  built  was  generally  small  and  the  character  of  the  archi- 
tecture discouraged  any  very  elaborate  treatment  of  the 
grounds. 

A  magnificent  French  chateau,  however,  designed  with 
the  utmost  correctness  and  surrounded  by  an  estate  of  several 
hundred  acres,  demanded  a  much  more  formal  and  elaborate 
kind  of  landscape  architecture;  and  during  the  past  fifteen, 
and  particularly  during  the  past  five  years,  the  design,  loca- 
tion, and  the  immediate  surroundings  of  the  newer  houses 
have  been  profoundly  modified  by  this  fact.  The  lay-out  of 
the  whole  place,  including  the  location  of  the  house,  of  the 
stables,  of  the  chief  approaches,  of  the  flower  and  kitchen 
gardens,  and  of  the  tennis-courts,  is  carefully  designed  in 
advance.  The  point  first  selected  is,  of  course,  the  best  site 
for  the  house,  and  the  line  of  the  roads,  the  situation  of  the 
stables  and  the  like  are  chiefly  determined  by  this  house-site, 
which,  however,  is  selected  in  relation  not  merely  to  a  pictur- 

[394] 


Lakewood  Residence  of  George  Gould. 


Bruce  Price,   Architect. 


DRAWING-ROOM     OF    "  GEORGIAN    COURT. 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 

esque  view,  but  to  the  complete  practical  development  of 
the  whole  estate.  The  immediate  surroundings  of  the  house 
are  as  a  rule  treated  formally,  with  an  abundance  of  architec- 
tural embellishment,  and  with  the  planting  subordinated  to 
architectural  effects.  .    _  _ 

It  is  becoming  more  and  more  the  custom  to  include  in 
the  lay-out  of  the  estates  a  "  formal  "  garden,  but  this  cus- 
tom is  one  which  has  become  general  only  at  a  very  recent 
date.  A  number  of  houses  erected  only  ten  years  ago  have 
lately  had  French  or  Italian  gardens  added  to  their  other 
attractions — a  fact  which  measures  very  well  the  almost  con- 
temporary interest  in  this  final  refinement  of  country  life. 
The  gardens  are  laid  out  for  the  most  part  by  the  architects 
of  the  houses,  who  have  not  as  yet  had  very  much  experience 
with  this  department  of  design,  and  whose  work  very  gen- 
erally lacks  the  feeling  for  natural  effects  which  the  older 
Italian  gardens,  in  spite  of  their  formality,  possessed  quite  as 
largely  as  the  most  "  naturalistic  "  English  gardens.  Their 
gardens  become  as  often  as  not  merely  rooms  that  are  out- 
doors, but  without  any  proper  outdoor  feeling — and  this 
deficiency  on  their  part  is  intensified  by  the  necessarily  unde- 
veloped character  of  the  natural  growth.  While  the  plant- 
ing of  a  formal  garden  is,  from  the  nature  of  the  design, 
subordinated  to  the  architecture,  yet  it  also  has  certain  rights 
of  its  own;  and  the  composition  of  the  whole  garden  should 
be  determined  as  much  by  the  intention  to  make  the  foliage 

[  397  ] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

soften,  enrich,  and  diversify  the  rigidity  of  the  architecture 
as  by  the  intention  to  have  the  chief  lines  and  masses  deter- 
mined by  the  architectural  lay-out.  The  average  contempo- 
rary formal  garden  connected  with  the  largest  houses  is 
rather  a  barren  afifair — with  its  barrenness  not  very  much 
relieved  by  an  abundance  of  beautiful  old  outdoor  furni- 
ture; and  to  find  the  best  American  formal  gardens  of  the 
present  day  one  must  hunt,  not  among  the  rich  lions,  but 
among  smaller,  tamer,  and  more  modest  animals. 

There  is  probably  no  aspect  of  our  big  modern  country 
places  which  will  strike  the  European  observer  as  so  artificial 
as  the  gardens;  there  is  certainly  none  which  so  irresistibly 
suggests  the  idea  that  the  exterior,  even  more  than  the  inte- 
rior, of  these  houses  gives  the  effect  of  an  incongruous  stage- 
setting.  The  incongruity,  in  case  of  the  formal  gardens, 
probably  does  run  a  little  deeper  than  usual,  because,  of  all 
the  great  classic  embellishments  of  domestic  life,  there  is 
none  which  so  completely  suggests  cultured  leisure  on  the 
part  of  its  inhabitant,  and  so  exclusively  demands  such  leisure 
for  its  genuine  enjoyment.  A  garden  is  a  place  in  which  one 
must  stroll  aimlessly  and  long.  It  is  the  peculiar  example 
of  the  protected  product  which  must  be  carefully  sheltered 
from  common  dangers  and  ordinary  associations — the  peculi- 
arly appropriate  spot  for  highly  cultivated  people  to  talk 
and  muse.  These  modern  American  gardens  are  not  en- 
joyed in  any  such  manner,  for  their  owners  are  busy,  practical 

[398] 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 

people,  who  take  their  pleasures  as  restlessly  as  they  do  their 
work,  and  in  whom,  assuredly,  the  spirit  of  reverie  does  not 
abide.  Yet  for  this  very  reason  they  are  perhaps  of  more 
educational  value  than  any  other  single  aspect  of  the  modern 
American  country  house.  The  rich  man  or  the  rich  man's 
wife  or  daughter  who  really  becomes  interested  in  the  family 
garden  will  probably  find  that  such  an  interest  has  more  the 
effect  of  a  liberal  education  than  has  any  other  aspect  of  the 
making  of  a  congenial  but  good-looking  house.  A  beautiful 
room  or  series  of  rooms  can  be  made  and  left  alone,  but  a 
garden  has  to  be  renewed  every  year.  It  contains,  within 
the  conditions  imposed  by  the  general  design,  room  for  many 
charming  and  novel  effects;  and  if  it  is  fatal  to  domestic 
propriety  to  leave  the  interior  to  an  architect,  it  is  even  more 
fatal  to  leave  the  garden  to  the  architect  and  a  hired  gar- 
dener. It  is  better  not  to  have  any  gardens  at  all  than  to 
have  our  gardens  entirely  cultivated  by  hired  people;  and  if 
Americans,  particularly  rich  Americans,  are  in  need  of  any 
advice  at  all,  it  is  the  advice  that  they  should  have  and  cul- 
tivate their  own  gardens. 

Nothing  is  more  absurd  than  some  of  the  "  Italian  "  gar- 
dens which  have  been  built,  such,  for  instance,  as  that  which 
decorates  the  grounds  of  Georgian  Court  in  very  much  the 
same  manner  that  the  weather-cock  decorates  the  roof  of  a 
house;  yet  in  adopting  the  Italian  garden  as  the  model  for 
the  American  garden  our  architects  have  shown  their  usual 

[403] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

appreciation  of  the  best  source  from  which  garden  forms  can 
be  derived.  The  Italian  garden  is,  undoubtedly,  the  classic 
form  of  garden — that  form  which  combines  the  most  com- 
plete and  beautiful  architectural  design  with  the  most  sym- 
pathetic interpretation  of  the  proper  values  of  foliage  and 
flowers.  Its  precise  forms  can  not  and  should  not  be  repro- 
duced in  a  country  such  as  ours,  in  which  social  conditions^ 
the  value  of  the  landscape,  and  the  varieties  of  the  vegetation 
differ  so  fundamentally  from  those  of  Italy  of  the  seventeenth 
century;  but  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  the  Italian  garden 
remains  a  living  source  of  garden  forms  of  unique  assistance 
to  the  landscape  architect.  The  English  flower  gardens,  al- 
though much  more  numerous  and  of  the  highest  interest,  are 
not  so  valuable  as  models,  because  on  the  whole  they  lack  the 
same  originality,  the  same  classic  completeness  of  design,  and 
the  same  technical  perfection.  The  English  have  so  fre- 
quently been  led  away  by  false  theories,  and  they  have  at 
times  held  the  balance  so  badly  between  a  lifeless  formality^ 
on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other,  an  unnatural  attempt  at 
naturalistic  imitation,  that  their  garden  history  is  as  full  of 
awful  as  it  is  of  splendid  examples.  The  unique  value  of 
English  landscape  architecture  and  art  does  not  consist  in  the 
formal  beauty  of  its  country  dwellings,  or  in  many  cases  of 
the  formal  perfection,  the  technical  propriety  of  its  pleasure 
gardens.  It  is  due  rather  to  the  fact  that  the  English  gen- 
tleman has  for  centuries  lived  in  the  country,  and  has  suc- 

[  404  ] 


Philadelphia,   Pa.  Horace  Trumbauer,   Architect. 

HALL    IN    THE    RESIDENCE    OF    P.    A.    B.    WIDENER. 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 

ceeded,  little  by  little,  and  through  the  force  of  persistent 
interest,  in  making  even  his  blundering  homely  and  beautiful. 
Rich  Americans  may  learn  from  the  English  the  spirit  in 
which  to  cultivate  their  gardens,  but  they  may  learn  better 
from  the  Italians  the  kind  of  gardens  to  cultivate. 

It  w^as,  perhaps,  an  appreciation  of  the  fact  that  the 
peculiar  merits  of  English  country  architecture  were  unat- 
tainable in  a  new  country  which  has  sent  American  architects 
chiefly  to  other  countries  for  their  models.  At  any  rate, 
whatever  the  motive,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  our  archi- 
tects in  coming  to  design  country  houses  on  a  magnificent 
scale  have  for  the  most  part  neglected  the  characteristic 
English  domestic  styles.  As  long  as  the  dwellings  they  had 
to  erect  were  merely  big  frame  villas,  the  outlines  of  which 
were  dominated  by  the  veranda,  they  remained  pretty  free 
from  all  direct  imitation  and  designed  houses  which  were  at 
least  original ;  but  when  wood  was  superseded  by  stone  and 
brick,  when  loggias,  porches,  and  external  galleries  took  the 
place  of  the  big  veranda,  and  when  eflfects  at  once  brave, 
sumptuous,  and  substantial  were  desired  by  their  clients,  they 
sought  for  an  historic  type  of  dwelling  which  fulfilled  these 
conditions;  and,  considering  their  continental  training  and 
predispositions,  it  is  not  surprising  that  they  found  them  in 
France  and  Italy.  The  majority  of  our  large  private  dwell- 
ings are  either  modified  early  Renaissance  chateaux  or  modi- 
fied Italian  "  palatial  "  villas. 

[  407  ] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

Both  of  these  styles  are,  of  course,  sufficiently  admirable 
in  their  own  way.  They  belong  to  periods,  the  temper  of 
which  in  its  relation  to  the  arts  of  domestic  life  finds  its  sub- 
dued and  altered  counterpart  among  the  rich  Americans  of 
to-day  and  their  designers. 

They  are  magnificent,  spectacular,  impressive,  and  rather 
impersonal.  They  were  inhabited  by  people  who  lived  pub- 
lic lives,  and  to  whom  the  exclusiveness  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
home  did  not  appeal.  Finally,  they  were  designed  by  archi- 
tects who  were  primarily  interested  in  the  more  formal  and 
architectural  qualities  of  their  buildings.  In  short,  they  are 
the  types  of  that  sort  of  semi-public  domestic  architecture 
which  modern  conditions  have  hitherto  favored  in  this  coun- 
try. They  have  escaped  from  the  meaningless  frigidity  of 
dwellings  designed  along  classic  or  even  Palladian  lines; 
they  have  retained  something  of  the  more  personal  character 
which  was  infused  into  domestic  architecture  during  the  con- 
centrated and  exclusive  family  life  of  the  Middle  Ages;  but 
at  the  same  time  the  walls  have  been  opened  up,  the  sunlight 
has  been  let  in,  classic  detail  has  been  freely  applied,  and  the 
whole  building,  while  not  losing,  particularly  in  the  case  of 
the  French  chateau,  traces  of  its  origin  as  a  fortified  resi- 
dence, wears  a  gracious  as  well  as  an  impressive  aspect.  It 
is  no  wonder,  consequently,  that  the  modern  American  archi- 
tect sought  his  models  among  French  and  Italian  Renais- 
sance buildings.     The  dwelling  he  designed  had  to  be  some- 

[408] 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 

what  impersonal,  just  because  he  was  designing  it  without 
any  reference  to  particular  personal  requirements  except  in 
the  way  of  conveniences.  But  although  impersonal  it  had 
also  to  be  elegant,  substantial,  striking,  and  magnificent;  and 
no  other  types  of  dwelling  fulfilled  these  conditions  so  well. 

It  may,  however,  be  questioned  whether  these  styles  will 
retain  their  present  hold  upon  the  American  architect. 
There  are  signs  that  some  of  the  millionaires  are  revolting 
against  the  parade  and  the  conscious  publicity  of  the 
"  palatial  "  dwelling.  This  revolt  has  in  several  instances 
prompted  them  to  request  their  architects  to  design  houses 
that  were  more  homely  and  domestic;  and  this,  it  need 
scarcely  be  said,  is  asking  something  of  the  architect  which 
the  architect  himself  can  scarcely  supply.  It  is  the  owner's 
personality  which  should  be  resident  in  the  building;  the 
architect  can  only  help  to  express  it.  But  the  mere  fact  that 
this  demand  is  being  consciously  made  is  probably  an  indi- 
cation that  as  time  goes  on  the  specious  and  incongruous  pub- 
licity which  the  millionaire's  great  wealth  have  given  them 
will  be  moderated.  Under  proper  regulative  laws  their  busi- 
ness transactions,  so  far  as  the  public  is  concerned  in  them, 
will  be  published,  while  the  mere  gossip  about  their  per- 
sonal lives,  the  prevailing  curiosity  as  to  what  they  spend, 
and  what  they  eat,  and  how  many  servants  they  have,  will 
become  less  a  matter  of  general  interest.  They  will  have 
become  too  familiar  for  exceptional  notoriety,  and  also  so 

[411] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

much  accustomed  to  the  possession  of  wealth  that  it  will  not 
to  the  same  extent  pervade  their  personalities.  Of  course, 
the  new-rich  man  will  always  be  with  us;  but  his  particular 
ambitions  will  cease  to  determine  the  social  relations  of 
wealthy  people  to  the  community.  And  as  the  latter  become 
less  conspicuous  they  will  wish  for  less  conspicuous  dwell- 
ings. The  "  palatial  "  residence  will  be  in  some  measure 
abandoned,  and  a  desirable  mixture  will  be  demanded  of 
domesticity  and  distinction. 

When  this  time  comes  the  earlier,  more  irregular,  and 
more  characteristically  English  domestic  styles  are  surely  to 
be  increasingly  used.  At  present,  indeed,  an  adaptation  of 
the  Elizabethan  timbered  and  plastered  dwelling  is  very 
popular  in  the  suburbs;  but  neither  of  the  Tudor,  Eliza- 
bethan, nor  Jacobean  forms  have  been  used  to  any  great  ex- 
tent for  the  larger  and  more  pretentious  buildings.  Very 
few  of  the  architects  seem  to  relish  these  styles.  Mr.  C.  C. 
Haight  is,  perhaps,  the  only  prominent  architect  who  has 
consistently  used  any  of  them,  while  the  house  of  Mr.  Henry 
W.  Poor  at  Tuxedo  is  one  of  the  few  of  the  greater  dwellings 
which  is  frankly  Jacobean.  Yet  it  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  the  Jacobean  house  expresses  more  perfectly  than  any 
other  just  that  combination  of  homeliness  and  distinction 
which  embodies  the  highest  domestic  proprieties. 

There  are  other  domestic  styles  which  have  in  some  re- 
spects marked  advantages  over  it.     Its  forms,  for  instance, 

[412] 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 

have  a  tendency  to  overemphasize  the  vertical  dimension, 
and  unless  carefully  managed  will  give  the  building  an 
appearance  of  being  cocked  up  and  of  failing  to  fit  its  site. 
In  this  respect  the  low  lines,  the  well-distributed  masses, 
overhanging  eaves,  and  the  gently  sloping  roofs  of  a  Nor- 
man farmhouse  or  of  some  Italian  villas  are  to  be  preferred; 
and  particularly  for  the  smaller  frame  and  stucco  houses 
these  styles  have  great  advantages.  But  this  danger  of 
Jacobean  forms  is  one  which  can  be  avoided  by  an  architect 
who  has  any  power  of  using  the  style  intelligently  and  who 
has  not  been  perverted  into  seeking  ''  picturesque  "  rather 
than  strictly  architectural  effects.  Putting  aside  the  Tudor 
dwelling  as  heavy  and  archaic,  and  the  Elizabethan  dwell- 
ing as  too  quaint,  the  Jacobean  remains  as  the  most  mature, 
the  most  consistent,  the  most  completely  domestic,  and  the 
most  finely  distinguished  of  the  early  English  styles;  and 
since  the  character  of  English  domestic  life  at  its  best  ap- 
proximates to  the  character  of  American  domestic  life  at  its 
best,  and  since  American  architects  are  quick  and  flexible  in 
discovering  and  using  the  forms  best  adapted  to  the  needs 
which  they  are  required  to  meet,  one  may  very  confidently 
predict  the  increased  use  of  Jacobean  or  some  similarly 
irregular  forms  for  the  greater  American  residence. 

This  selection  of  the  Jacobean  residence  as  one  of  the 
best,  if  not  the  best,  models  for  the  architects  of  the  less 
"  palatial  "  dwelling  of  the  future  to  use,  may  not  seem  to 

[415] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

harmonize  very  well  with  the  selection  of  the  Italian  gar- 
den as  the  best  model  for  garden  design  to  follow;  but  in 
neither  case  is  literal  imitation  meant  or  to  be  desired.  An 
Italian  garden  would  have  to  be  very  much  changed  in 
order  to  go  with  a  brick  Jacobean  house;  but,  as  we  have 
already  intimated,  it  must  in  any  case  be  very  much  changed 
before  it  can  be  properly  adapted  to  American  life  and  the 
American  landscape.  What  needs  not  to  be  changed  is  the 
ideal  of  formal  design,  the  propriety  with  which  the  natural 
advantages  are  used  without  any  Procrustean  mutilation  of 
the  lay  of  the  land,  the  predominance  of  architectural  effects, 
and  the  admirable  feeling  for  the  foliage  and  the  flowers 
which  enrich  and  diversify  these  architectural  values.  A 
garden  of  this  kind  can  be  adapted  to  a  Jacobean  as  well  as 
to  any  other  style  of  dwelling.  Moreover,  the  Jacobean 
forms  themselves  would  undergo  an  analogous  transforma- 
tion, just  as  the  modern  ''  Georgian  "  houses  are  changed  in 
many  important  respects  from  the  old  colonial.  Neither 
must  it  be  supposed  that  we  are  predicting  or  recommending 
the  prevalence  of  any  one  historic  style  of  domestic  archi- 
tecture. We  are  only  suggesting  that  in  proportion  as  the 
greater  American  residence  tends  to  become  less  "  palatial  " 
and  conspicuous,  and  more  homely,  it  will  naturally  approx- 
imate to  the  homelier  but  not  less  beautiful  forms  of  resi- 
dential design. 

A  suggestive  illustration  of  the  contention  that  the  Jaco- 

[416] 


Pittsburg,   Pa.  Alden  &  Harlow,   Architects. 

HALL    IN    THE    RESIDENCE    OF    A.    R.    PEACOCK. 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 

bean  forms  or  some  modification  of  them  are  peculiarly 
appropriate  to  the  finer  kinds  of  domestic  life  may  be  ob- 
served in  "  Idle  Hour" — Mr.  W.  K.  Vanderbilt's  dwelling 
at  Oakdale,  L.  I.  This  house  was  planned  on  the  scale  of 
the  largest  of  the  American  dwellings,  but  its  architect  dis- 
tinctly sought  for  some  particularly  domestic  and  home-like 
atmosphere.  In  obtaining  such  an  atmosphere  he  was  ham- 
pered by  the  fact  that  his  training  was  French,  and  he  had 
been  accustomed  to  design  almost  exclusively  with  French 
forms  in  mind,  so  that  his  design  for  Mr.  Vanderbilt's 
house,  although  it  called  for  brick  as  the  particularly  do- 
mestic material,  was  shaped  on  the  whole  something  like  a 
chateau  of  the  time  of  Louis  XIV.  At  the  same  time  the 
intention  to  get  more  of  a  home-like  effect  either  consciously 
or  unconsciously  compelled  the  use  of  certain  Jacobean 
motives.  In  spite  of  its  French  appearance,  French  even 
by  virtue  of  many  strictly  Gallic  qualities,  the  total  expres- 
sion of  the  building  is  somehow  English;  but  if  the  gables 
or  fractables,  the  arcade  of  the  entrance,  the  chimneys,  the 
symmetrical  diversity  of  the  parts,  the  color  and  proportions 
of  the  building  all  suggest  the  Jacobean  manner,  the  sug- 
gestion is  admittedly  vague,  and  just  strong  enough  to  divorce 
the  design  from  its  expressed  style.  The  case  is  a  very,  sug- 
gestive one,  because  other  architects,  who  are  subject  to  the 
same  demand,  can  scarcely  avoid  the  use  of  brick,  and  a 
brick    dwelling    almost    necessarily   means    a    Georgian    or 

[421] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

Jacobean  design  or  some  modification  thereof.  But  between 
the  Georgian  and  Jacobean  styles  it  is  not  difficult  to  make 
a  choice,  particularly  when  the  choice  is  assisted  by  the  fact 
that  the  Jacobean  forms  are  more  readily  adaptable  to  the 
large  and  spacious  houses  which  will  be  required. 

"  Idle  Hour  "  is  one  of  the  latest  examples  of  the  greater 
American  dwelling,  and,  except  for  the  fact  that  its  grounds 
have  been  left  in  a  very  unfinished  state,  shows  the  influence 
of  the  most  recent  twentieth-century  conditions.  In  order, 
however,  to  obtain  a  closer  view  of  certain  individual  cases 
of  this  type  it  will  be  as  well  to  turn  to  earlier  examples,  of 
which  the  earliest  as  well  as  the  most  noteworthy  is  to  be 
found  at  Newport.  It  was  there  that  the  "  palatial  "  coun- 
try house  first  appeared;  and  it  is  there  that  its  defects,  if  not 
its  merits,  can  be  most  fully  studied.  One  of  the  most 
obvious  of  these  defects  is  the  curious  contrast,  so  suggestive 
of  the  way  in  which  our  practise  precedes  propriety,  between 
the  "  suburban  "  character  of  the  "  lay-out "  and  the  mag- 
nificence of  some  of  the  buildings.  When  the  picturesque 
and  unpretentious  frame  villas  which  we  have  already  de- 
scribed were  superseded  by  the  more  sumptuous  type  of 
dwelling,  sites,  which  were  appropriate  to  the  smaller 
building,  became  wholly  incongruous  with  the  grandeur  and 
pretentiousness  of  the  latter.  No  one  can  look  at  "  The 
Breakers,"  "The  Marble  House,"  '^  Ochre  Court,"  ''Bel- 
court,"  and  the  other  Newport  residences  illustrated  in  this 

[  422  ] 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 

book  without  a  sense  that  the  restricted  setting  of  these  build- 
ings, and  the  stunted  approaches  to  them,  so  far  vitiates  the 
very  design  that,  in  order  to  be  fair  to  the  buildings  them- 
selves, one  has  almost  to  go  through  a  process  of  visual 
elimination. 

After  accepting,  however,  the  utterly  inadequate  dimen- 
sions of  the  site  and  the  necessary  incongruity  of  a  palatial 
"  home,"  a  house  such  as  "  The  Breakers  "  is  within  these 
limits  a  very  brilliant  piece  of  work.  It  is  the  best  "  villa 
in  the  Italian  style  "  we  possess.  The  architect  has  achieved 
a  real  success  in  giving  each  of  the  large  fronts  a  distinct 
physiognomy  of  its  own,  while  at  the  same  time  maintaining 
a  sufficient  unity  of  effect.  These  fronts  are,  moreover, 
strictly  architectural,  and  their  central  features,  the  porches 
and  the  loggias,  are  not  mere  redundancies  of  architectural 
expression,  but  are  legitimately  developed  from  the  plan 
and  are  essential  parts  of  the  architectural  composition. 
"  Belcourt,"  on  the  other  hand,  while  a  much  less  finished 
piece  of  work,  possesses  more  individuality.  It  has,  indeed, 
been  called  a  "  palatial  stable  with  an  incidental  apartment 
and  an  incidental  ballroom";  but  the  "incidents"  are  most 
frankly  and  picturesquely  treated,  and  with  the  interior 
court  constitute  one  of  the  most  charming  bits  of  domestic 
work  in  the  country.  A  much  more  magnificent  but  less 
interesting  building  is  the  "  Marble  House."  It  is  formal, 
classical,  monumental,  institutional — everything  which  might 

[425] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

be  "palatial,"  everything  which  can  not  be  home-like;  but 
it  lacks  the  gracious  and  smiling  aspect  which  many  even 
of  the  ''  palaces  "  possess.  It  invites  comparison  with  some 
of  our  earlier  post-revolutionary  classic  buildings,  and  it  can 
hardly  be  said  that  the  modern  building  gains  by  the  com- 
parison. The  building  is  well  composed  and  stately,  and 
the  detail  is  correct;  but  the  omission  of  a  visible  stylobate 
greatly  weakens  the  effect  of  the  design  of  the  main  front. 
While  more  exact  than  the  early  classical  experiments,  it  is 
less  felicitous.  The  absence  of  charm  robs  it  even  of  its 
impressiveness. 

The  later  examples  of  the  "  palatial  "  dwelling  possess 
adequate  if  not  wholly  appropriate  sites;  and  of  these  ex- 
amples the  most  interesting  performance  is  unquestionably 
'*  Biltmore  " — the  dwelling  of  Mr.  George  Vanderbilt  near 
Asheville,  N.  C.  We  have  already  used  this  estate  as  the 
best  illustration  of  the  large  country  place  built  for  a  man 
of  wealth,  refinement,  and  leisure,  and  situated  without 
reference  to  constant  attendance  on  an  office.  It  follows 
naturally  from  this  remoteness  that  it  is  the  one  American 
"  chateau  "  which  is  surrounded  by  something  like  a  domain. 
The  architect,  the  late  Richard  M.  Hunt,  was  fully  equal 
to  the  unusual  opportunity  which  was  given  to  him.  He 
had  no  diffidence  in  adapting  himself  to  the  unusual  scale 
of  the  design.  Standing  as  the  building  does  in  a  landscape 
in  which  rude  natural  traits  predominate,  one  is  tempted  to 

[  426  ] 


% 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 

wonder  whether  the  effect  to  be  derived  from  reading  a 
Provencal  lay  translated  into  Choctaw  would  be  so  very  dis- 
similar from  the  effect  produced  by  this  immigrant  from 
the  Loire  among  the  hills  of  North  Carolina.  But  how  skil- 
fully the  difficult  translation  has  been  managed!  The  archi- 
tect has  taken  full  advantage  of  the  royal  scale  of  the  build- 
ing, and  has  selected  a  plateau  for  the  site  which  gives  him 
the  spaces  and  distances  he  needs.  But  while  availing  him- 
self to  the  limit  of  the  advantages  of  abundant  space,  he  has 
very  successfully  maintained  that  sense  of  unity  in  freedom 
which  is  one  of  the  chief  characteristics  of  the  style  he 
adopted.  The  masses  are  bold,  free,  well-emphasized,  and 
skilfully  disposed,  with  an  ease  which  evinces  the  native 
talent  of  the  American  for  the  "big  thing";  and  the  gen- 
eral balance  of  the  composition  is  excellent.  Yet  the  con- 
trasts of  the  design,  also,  are  excellent.  One  can  not 
overlook  the  effective  richness  of  the  front,  with  its  refined 
detail  appropriately  adapted  to  the  formal  treatment  of  the 
grounds,  as  compared  with  the  ruder  treatment  of  the  rear 
of  the  building  overlooking  a  wide  prospect  of  uncultivated 
country. 

There  could  not  be  a  better  illustration  of  the  experi- 
mental nature  of  every  aspect  of  the  great  modern  American 
residence,  for  the  raison  d'etre  of  the  estate  is  as  experi- 
mental as  its  architecture.  It  so  happened  that  Mr.  George 
Vanderbilt,  being  interested  in  trees,  selected  a  well-wooded 

[431] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

country  for  his  house  and  purchased  an  enormous  domain  in 
order  to  have  plenty  of  room  for  his  arboricultural  station. 
At  the  same  time  he  wanted  an  impressive,  magnificent,  and 
highly  civilized  house,  and  the  incongruity  which  resulted 
between  his  rude  landscape  and  elaborate,  princely  dwelling 
is  a  frank  expression  of  the  incongruities  of  a  society  a  mem- 
ber of  which  can  in  the  most  natural  manner  in  the  world 
wish  to  combine  a  royal  residence  with  an  uncultivated 
landscape  and  a  hobby  for  tree-culture.  In  all  probability 
just  the  same  combination  will  not  again  occur,  because  the 
majority  of  people  who  build  large  country  houses  prefer 
farming  to  arboriculture  and  would  naturally  select  a  better 
cultivated  and  more  civilized  landscape.  For  this  and  other 
reasons  "  Biltmore  "  remains  architecturally  an  experiment 
and  an  exception,  which  gives  no  chance  for  fruitful  imi- 
tation; and  an  experiment  which  is  never  repeated  is  an 
experiment  wasted.  Yet  in  the  same  breath  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  such  experiments  in  the  mass  add  enormously  to 
the  picturesqueness  of  American  life,  and  those  people  who 
criticize  them  in  the  spirit  of  an  architectural  purist  lose 
thereby  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  and  do  their  country  an 
injustice. 

There  are  a  number  of  American  architectural  critics 
who  take  an  extremely  unfavorable  view  of  the  architectural 
value  of  these  contemporary  dwellings.  They  dislike  them 
particularly  for  the  qualities  which  recommend  them  to  their 

[  432  ] 


Fifth  Avenue,   New  York  City.  Clinton  &  Russell,   Architects. 

RESIDENCE    BELONGING    TO    WILLIAM    WALDORF    ASTOR. 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN  RESIDENCE 

owners  and  to  their  architects.  They  do  not  at  all  like,  for 
instance,  the  almost  exclusively  esthetic  point  of  view  which 
generally  determines  the  design.  They  do  not  like  the  tend- 
ency, which  even  the  best  architects  occasionally  show,  to 
copy  the  designs  both  of  the  fagade  and  its  ornamentation 
from  some  of  those  books  of  plates  of  historic  dwellings  with 
which  their  offices  are  filled.  They  complain  of  the  amount 
of  work  which  the  offices  of  the  most  popular  and  important 
architects  turn  out,  and  declare  that  careful  and  well-consid- 
ered designs  can  not  possibly  come  from  such  hurried  meth- 
ods of  professional  design.  It  would  be  absurd  to  deny  that 
criticisms  of  this  kind  are  in  the  main  true;  but  this  book 
will  have  been  written  in  vain  unless  our  readers  can  by  this 
time  sufficiently  qualify  these  criticisms.  The  greater  dwell- 
ing of  the  present  must  be  considered  as  one  phase  in  a  series 
of  architectural  and  social  changes.  When  we  remember 
that  it  was  preceded  in  this  country  by  the  "  most  vulgar 
type  habitation  "  ever  erected  by  man,  and  when  we  remem- 
ber that  its  whole  movement  has  taken  place  in  less  than  a 
generation,  we  need  not  be  surprised  that  dwellings  with 
such  predecessors  and  with  such  a  short  history  will  consti- 
tute an  extreme  and  very  imperfect  type.  "  Stunning " 
buildings  were  needed  in  order  to  awaken  popular  interest 
in  architecture,  and  these  stunning  buildings  had  to  be 
designed  along  scholastic  lines  because  it  was  necessary 
to   naturalize   certain   acceptable    and   time-honored    forms. 

[435] 


STATELY   HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

Whatever  the  deficiency  of  these  buildings  they  have  at  least 
accomplished  this  result.  They  have  stimulated  interest  in 
architecture  both  in  their  owners  and  among  the  people 
generally;  they  have  created  the  impression  that  the  United 
States  stands  for  something  architecturally;  they,  together 
with  the  whole  movement  of  which  they  are  a  part,  have 
even  become  sufliciently  celebrated  to  warrant  foreign  offi- 
cial recognition — as  in  the  case  of  the  English  medal  re- 
cently bestowed  on  Mr.  Charles  F.  McKim.  The  effect 
which  it  all  produces  on  an  intelligent  general  critic  may 
be  judged  from  the  references  to  modern  American  archi- 
tecture contained  in  Prof.  Barrett  Wendell's  chapter  on 
"  American  Intellect "  in  the  volume  of  the  Cambridge 
"  Modern  History  of  the  United  States."  "  Within  the  last 
thirty  years,"  he  says,  "  something  resembling  a  true  archi- 
tectural renaissance  has  declared  itself  in  America.  The 
great  increase  of  wealth  in  the  country  has  combined  with 
various  new  conditions  of  life  to  demand  from  trained 
architects  something  like  actual  novelties — they  have  devel- 
oped various  types  of  buildings  which  are  at  this  moment 
at  least  so  far  successful  that  to  an  American  who  visits 
Europe  contemporary  architecture  in  the  Old  World  is  apt 
to  appear  comparatively  lifeless.  Recent  private  houses  in 
America  display  an  opulent  spaciousness,  and  at  the  same 
time  an  intelligent  adaptation  to  the  conditions  of  life  which 
they  are  designed  to  serve,  which  are  seldom  apparent  in 

[436] 


Fifth  Avenue,    New   York  City.  Clinton  &  Russell,   Architects. 

RESIDENCES    BELONGING    TO    WILLIAM    WALDORF    ASTOR. 


THE  MODERN  AMERICAN   RESIDENCE 

modern  private  houses  in  Europe."  This  estimate  undoubt- 
edly places  too  much  stress  upon  the  originality  of  American 
architecture;  but  since  it  represents  very  well  the  present 
popular  opinion  about  contemporary  American  building 
among  intelligent  amateurs,  it  shows  sufficiently  the  quality 
of  the  impression  which  the  American  architect  produces. 


[439] 


THE   MODERN   RESIDENCE — 
ITS   INTERIOR 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Ci^e  piohttn  iSejstDence— 31W  gintertor 

'E  have  frequently  intimated  that  it  is  the 
interiors  of  these  great  houses  which  most 
arouse  the  interest  of  the  designer,  be- 
cause it  is  in  the  interiors  that  his  meth- 
)  ods,  opportunities,  materials,  and  talents, 
all  of  them  have  their  best  opportunity  for  display.  He 
is  always  seeking  to  enrich  the  surroundings  of  American 
life  with  remnants  or  reproductions  of  European  domestic 
scenery;  but,  so  far  as  the  exteriors  are  concerned,  he  can 
not  sufficiently  control  the  conditions  to  give  the  result  their 
full  esthetic  value.  In  the  city  he  has  to  submit  to  bad 
dimensions  and  impossible  neighbors;  in  the  country  to  a 
crude  and  undeveloped  natural  environment.  When  he  en- 
ters the  house,  however,  he  can  shut  the  door  on  these 
rebellious  conditions.  The  interior  creates  its  own  atmos- 
phere and  sets  its  own  tone.  If,  for  instance,  it  is  something 
"  palatial "  that  is  wanted,  the  exterior  can  never  really 
become  a  palace,  because  its  site  can  not  take  on  that  com- 
manding and  official  character  which  goes  with   the   resi- 

[443] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

dence  of  a  European  potentate.  The  interior,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  throne-room  apart,  can  be  made  as  "  palatial  "  as  you 
please;  and  it  is  in  the  interiors  that  the  American  architects 
have  made  their  most  successful  attempts  to  restore  the 
splendors  of  the  historic  European  residences. 

In  the  case  of  the  exteriors  the  architect  can  import  only 
the  designs,  but  in  making  his  interiors  he  has  the  tremen- 
dous advantage,  from  his  point  of  view,  of  being  able  to  use 
the  actual  materials,  the  veritable  fragments,  of  former 
European  rooms.  Moreover,  it  is  not  simply  a  matter  of 
fetching  over  detachable  furniture,  fabrics,  and  tapestries. 
The  agents  of  the  rich  Americans  have  invaded  Europe  and 
torn  out  the  very  walls  and  ceilings  of  these  old  houses,  so 
that,  in  many  instances,  the  paneling  that  once  lined  the 
dining-room  of  an  English  "  baron  "  now  adds  a  dim  dis- 
tinction to  the  meals  of  an  American  banker,  while  his 
drawing-room  is  focused  by  some  fine  gray  Italian  mantel- 
piece— firm,  rich,  delicate,  and  substantial.  By  the  skilful 
use  of  these  materials  and  fragments  he  can  produce  effects 
which  would  be  impossible  with  modern  materials;  he  can, 
above  all,  produce  the  effect  of  time  and  distinguished  asso- 
ciations. He  can  surround  the  most  modern  of  people  with 
the  scenery  and  properties  of  a  rich  and  memorable  his- 
toric past. 

Of  course  they  produce  something  of  the  effect  of  the 
stage-setting  to  a  heavy  drama  very  different  from  the  quick, 

[  444  ] 


iifiaHiiailk 

New  York  City. 


Louis   C.    Tiffany,    Designer. 
STUDIO    OF    THE    TIFFANY    HOUSE. 


THE  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

informal  comedy  of  modem  American  domestic  life;  but  it 
should  be  added  that  they  are  equally  incongruous,  except  on 
certain  state  occasions,  with  the  prose  of  modern  European 
life.  Under  any  circumstances  they  have  ceased  to  have  very 
much  social  propriety.  No  doubt  modern  European  life  still 
remains  a  good  deal  of  an  official  pageant.  As  long  as  there 
are  emperors,  kings,  and  dukes,  we  presume  that  palaces 
must  be  called  something  more  than  sets  of  scenery;  but  are 
they  very  much  more?  No  matter  how  sincere  and  legiti- 
mate the  parts  they  are  playing,  emperors  and  kings  can  not 
but  be  to  our  modern  sense  very  much  like  actors;  but  they 
are  actors  who  are  trying  to  live  up  to  the  scenery  of  a  play 
that  was  written  some  centuries  ago.  Americans,  on  the 
other  hand,  have  no  wish  to  act  up  to  the  borrowed  scenery. 
For  them  it  is  sufficient  occasionally  to  feel  up  to  it;  their 
obligations  are  esthetic  and  intellectual,  and  they  have  a 
much  better  chance  of  moderating  the  scenery  to  their  lives 
than  certain  modern  Europeans  have  of  keeping  their  lives 
constantly  on  a  level  with  the  scenery. 

With  a  certain  class  of  Americans  the  love  of  it  has  be- 
come almost  a  passion;  and  these  Americans  on  this  particu- 
lar point  still  find  their  most  articulate  representative  in 
Mr.  Henry  James.  While  in  his  earlier  stories  he  returned 
again  and  again  to  subjects  suggested  by  the  intellectual 
awakening  which  so  frequently  attends  an  American's  first 
trip  to  Europe,  more  recently,  after  a  closer  study  of  Euro- 

[  447  ] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

pean  life  and  its  effect  on  Americans,  he  constantly  derives 
not  merely  his  scenery,  but  even  his  motives  from  the  actual 
effect  on  the  lives  of  people  of  noble,  memorable,  and  beau- 
tiful houses.  Just  as  in  Stevenson's  view  romance  consisted 
in  the  performance  of  certain  fine  and  stirring  actions  in 
appropriate  surroundings,  so  Mr.  James,  although  he  does 
not  write  romances,  is  always  peculiarly  solicitous  about 
effecting  some  suggestive  propriety  between  the  man  or  the 
woman  and  the  house.  Generally  it  is  the  house  which  in 
a  few  suggestive  touches  reveals  the  person ;  but  sometimes 
it  is  the  person  who  is,  as  it  were,  beatified  by  the  house. 
Thus,  in  the  "  Two  Magics,"  a  young  English  radical,  who 
happens  to  possess  a  noble  and  mellow  historic  mansion,  is 
gradually  made  to  understand  by  a  very  charming  American 
woman  that  the  possession  of  such  a  house  is  incompatible 
with  a  narrow  radical  creed,  and  that  the  social  obligation 
imposed  by  the  former  was  more  compelling  than  the  obli- 
gation imposed  by  the  latter.  The  instance  is  peculiar  to 
the  point,  partly  because  the  modern  American  woman  has 
so  much  to  do  with  the  modern  American  house,  and  partly 
because  the  greater  American  house  is  one  of  the  great  con- 
servative and  mellowing  influences  acting  on  the  economic 
radicalism  of  the  American  millionaire.  Noble  houses,  even 
when  the  nobleness  is  a  reproduction,  in  some  measure 
oblige;  and  Americans  want  them  because  they  feel  the  need 
and  the  value  of  the  intellectual  obligation. 

[448] 


iO 


v  '^  >fYn2& 


New  York  City.  Louis  C.  Tiffany,   Designer. 

FIREPLACE    IN    THE    STUDIO    OF    THE    TIFFANY    HOUSE. 


i   !•-.  _     J    -J 


J{)>J\^^^y^^^\^ 


THE  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

M.  Paul  Bourget,  who  is  one  of  the  few  foreigners  who 
has  partly  understood  some  of  the  significance  of  the  greater 
modern  American  residences,  appreciates  the  terrible  vacancy 
which  their  architects  and  owners  wish  them  to  fill.  In 
writing  of  an  American  who  criticized  the  weakness  of  his 
countrymen  for  the  relics  of  European  domestic  life,  he  says : 
"  In  my  opinion,  he  does  not  recognize  the  sincerity,  almost 
the  pathos,  of  this  love  of  Americans  for  surrounding  them- 
selves with  things  around  which  there  is  an  idea  of  time  and 
stability.  It  is  almost  a  physical  satisfaction  of  the  eyes  to 
meet  here  the  faded  colors  of  an  ancient  painting,  the  blurred 
stamp  of  an  antique  coin,  the  softened  shades  of  a  medieval 
tapestry.  In  this  country,  where  everything  is  of  yesterday, 
they  hunger  and  thirst  for  the  long  ago."  This,  however, 
is  by  no  means  the  whole  story.  While  Americans  in  build- 
ing these  residences  do  want  to  dress  their  modern  improve- 
ments with  as  much  as  possible  of  the  trappings  of  a  former 
Europe,  there  is  plainly  an  esthetic  as  well  as  a  reminiscent 
purpose  involved.  From  M.  Bourget's  description  one 
might  get  the  idea  that  the  Newport  villa  was  more  of  a 
museum  than  it  was  a  dwelling.  Well,  the  museum  idea  did 
prevail  to  a  greater  extent  ten  years  ago,  when  M.  Bourget 
visited  this  country,  than  it  does  to-day,  but  even  then  the 
use  of  these  old  materials  was  preferred  on  purely  esthetic 
grounds.  An  attempt  was  already  being  made  to  hang  them 
and  arrange  them  with  an  eye  to  new  and  wholly  original 
effects.  ^  ^^3  ^ 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

The  American  architect  and  decorator  in  casting  about 
for  the  materials  and  forms  which  he  might  use  in  order  to 
make  the  interiors  of  a  house  impressive  and  distinguished 
really  had  no  choice.  Throughout  the  whole  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  the  arts  and  crafts  of  Europe  had  been  as 
imitative  and  uninspired  as  its  architecture.  The  intelli- 
gent American  designer  could  find  nothing  in  them  worthy 
of  domestication  in  this  country.  On  the  other  hand,  he 
could  not  set  up  for  himself  and  dispense  entirely  with  for- 
eign precedents,  just  because  there  were  no  good  and  suffi- 
cient local  precedents  to  follow  and  no  skilled  local  crafts- 
men to  carry  out  his  ideas.  The  only  thing  to  do  was  to 
attempt  some  domestication  of  the  best  styles  and  materials 
of  a  Europe  which  did  possess  an  original,  beautiful,  and 
appropriate  industrial  art;  and  the  result  would  have  been 
the  same  even  if  the  more  recent  "  New  Art "  movement  had 
been  as  popular  abroad  twenty-five  years  ago  as  it  is  to-day. 
The  decoration  of  very  few  houses  in  this  country  were  in- 
fluenced by  the  ideas,  so  prevalent  in  England,  of  William 
Morris,  while  the  native  American  designer,  whose  style, 
whatever  we  think  of  its  merits,  is  most  markedly  original, 
has  found  no  imitators.  Foreigners  can  not  understand  why 
the  New  World  does  not  take  kindly  to  the  "  New  Art " ; 
but,  to  tell  the  truth,  Americans  have  as  yet  no  need  of  a 
revolt  and  of  a  conscious  seeking  after  novelty  in  art.  In  a 
new  country  all  art  is  in  a  very  real  sense  new  art;  and  in  a 

[  454  ] 


■"77 


JO 


THE  MODERN   RESIDENCE 

new  country,  also,  good  art  is  much  more  necessary  than 
new  art.  Americans  do  not  feel  ''  safe  "  in  such  surround- 
ings; they  have  no  guarantee  that  it  is  the  real  thing,  and 
consequently  they  are  at  present  much  more  conservative  in 
matters  of  interior  decoration  than  are  Europeans. 

They  are,  however,  undoubtedly  coming  to  use  the  old 
furniture  and  fabrics  with  great  originality  of  efifect.  Be- 
decked as  the  modern  residence  is  with  the  spoils  of  palaces, 
the  effect  of  some  of  the  best  rooms  is  often  as  far  as  pos- 
sible from  being  merely  stupidly  and  extravagantly  "  pala- 
tial." Year  by  year  there  has  increased  among  the  better 
American  designers  a  thorough  familiarity  with  the  proper 
value  of  the  materials  they  are  using,  so  that,  while  dispens- 
ing with  archeological  consistency,  they  can  still  obtain  an 
almost  complete  esthetic  propriety  of  efifect.  The  esthetic 
proprieties  are  much  more  carefully  considered  than  the 
social  proprieties,  but  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  assert  that 
the  latter  are  entirely  ignored.  There  are  houses,  indeed, 
in  which  the  architect  has  not  apparently  tried  to  do  any- 
thing but  spend  his  client's  money  in  as  lavish  a  manner  as 
possible,  with  the  efifect  merely  of  filling  the  rooms  with 
gorgeous  and  expensive  hangings  and  furniture.  Careless 
and  extravagant  profusion  is  undoubtedly  the  danger  into 
which  the  owner,  the  architect,  and  particularly  the  profes- 
sional decorator  are  most  likely  to  fall ;  but  if  in  a  new  and 
experimental  movement,  such  as  we  are  considering,  it  is  not 

[457] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

unfair  to  place  the  greater  emphasis  upon  the  best  examples; 
and  in  the  best  examples  the  effect  is  rich  and  distinguished, 
and  yet,  if  not  homely  and  personal,  at  least  not  merely  frigid 
and  official.  A  modern  American  family,  that  is,  can  live 
in  the  rooms  without  being  overpowered  by  their  magnifi- 
cence or  chilled  by  their  cold  correctness.  It  should  be 
admitted  at  once,  however,  that  the  number  of  designers 
who  can  use  these  materials  with  any  sense  of  domestic  pro- 
priety is  very  small,  and  that  what  is  most  needed  in  Amer- 
ican decoration  is  the  fulfilment  of  the  finer  promise  which 
the  best  work  of  these  designers  presents. 

The  fact  remains,  however,  that  a  practically  new  work 
of  decorative  art  can  be  made  by  the  idiomatic  and  original 
composition  of  these  old  materials,  and  the  character  of  this 
new  work  of  art  has  been  so  well  described  by  Mr.  Henry 
James  that  we  shall  fall  back  on  him  once  again  for  the 
most  significant  and  promising  instance.  In  "  The  Spoils 
of  Poynton,"  the  whole  motive  of  the  book  is  derived  from 
the  passionate  devotion  to  a  beautiful  house,  which  is  aroused 
in  the  woman  who  planned  it,  by  the  danger  of  it  falling 
into  the  hands  of  people  who  will  impair  its  perfection;  but 
it  is  the  description  of  the  house  itself  to  which  we  wish  par- 
ticularly to  call  attention — so  nicely  does  it  correspond  with 
the  better  performance  and  promise  of  the  American  de- 
signer. Writing  of  a  sympathetic  visitor,  who  for  the  first 
time  was  visiting  the  house,  he  says :  "  Wandering  through 

[4S8] 


u 

< 

M 
O 

ss 

H 

< 

•J 
o 

o 

H 
U 

M 

Q 
i-« 

CO 

M 

0i 


THE  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

clear  chambers,  where  the  general  effect  made  preferences 
almost  as  impossible  as  if  they  had  been  shocks,  pausing  at 
open  doors,  where  vistas  were  long  and  bland,  she  would, 
even  if  she  had  not  already  known,  have  discovered  for  her- 
self that  Poynton  was  the  record  of  a  life.  It  was  written 
in  great  syllables  of  color  and  form,  the  tongues  of  other 
countries,  and  the  hands  of  rare  artists.  It  was  all  France 
and  Italy,  with  their  ages  composed  to  rest.  For  England 
you  looked  out  of  old  windows — it  was  England  that  was 
the  wide  embrace.  While  outside  on  the  low  terraces  she 
contracted  gardeners  and  refined  on  nature,  Mrs.  Gereth 
left  her  guest  to  finger  fondly  the  glasses  that  Louis  Quinze 
might  have  thumbed,  to  sit  with  Venetian  velvets,  just  held 
in  a  loving  palm,  to  hang  over  cases  of  enamels,  and  pass  and 
repass  before  cabinets.  There  were  not  many  pictures — the 
panels  and  the  stuffs  were  themselves  the  picture;  and  in  all 
the  great  wainscoted  house  there  was  not  an  inch  of  pasted 
paper.  What  struck  Fleda  most  in  it  was  the  high  pride  of 
her  friend's  taste,  a  fine  arrogance,  a  sense  of  style  which, 
however  amusing  and  amused,  never  compromised  or 
stooped." 

Poynton  was  in  England  and  had  the  advantage  of 
English  landscape  surroundings;  but  apart  from  this  irre- 
mediable deficiency,  the  American  designer  succeeds  at  his 
best,  very  much  as  Mrs.  Gereth  succeeded.  His  materials, 
like  hers,   are  derived  chiefly  from   France   and   Italy,   he 

[463] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

prides  himself  on  his  bland  vistas  and  his  total  effect;  and 
often  there  is  something  very  arrogant  and  uncompromising 
about  his  sense  of  style.  Of  course  the  great  difference  con- 
sists in  the  fact  that  his  interiors  are  not  and  can  not  be  "  the 
record  of  a  life."  He  is  making  another  oerson's  house,  not 
his  own.  He  is  spending  another  person's  money,  not  his 
own.  The  only  things  of  his  own  that  he  is  spending  are 
his  talent  and  his  time,  and  if  he  gives  freely  of  the  former, 
he  is  unfortunately  obliged  to  be  extremely  economical  with 
the  latter.  The  result  may  be  beautiful,  distinguished,  and 
in  a  way  even  pleasant  and  domestic,  but  it  can  not  very  well 
be  individual;  and  since  individuality  in  the  interior  of  a 
house  is  beyond  a  certain  point  worth  the  sacrifice  even  of 
inerrancy  and  a  pervading  sense  of  style,  this  quality  is  the 
one  most  needed  in  the  large  American  house. 

Many  American  houses  of  to-day  are  very  individual; 
but  as  such  houses  usually  belong  to  people  of  good  taste 
but  moderate  means,  who  have  been  thrown  decoratively 
upon  their  own  resources,  they  do  not  come  within  the  scope 
of  this  book.  At  the  same  time  the  fact  that  such  high  suc- 
cesses are  frequently  obtained  with  comparatively  meager 
resources,  and  by  people  whose  interest  in  decoration  is  not 
in  the  least  professional,  is  an  indication  of  what  may  be  ex- 
pected later  in  the  bigger  and  more  conspicuous  dwellings. 
It  is  significant  that  what  is  probably  the  most  beautiful 
residence  on  a  generous  "  palatial  "  scale  as  yet  composed  in 

[464] 


Roslyn,   L.   I.  McKim,   Mead  &  White,   Architects. 

STAIRWAY    IN    THE    RESIDENCE    OF    CLARENCE    MACKAY. 


THE  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

this  country  has  been  planned  by  a  person  who  was  not  pro- 
fessional and  who  was  doing  it  for  personal  comfort  and 
amusement.  That  person,  it  so  happens,  is  a  woman;  and 
we  imagine  that  in  the  near  future  the  process  of  individu- 
alizing the  interiors  of  the  greater  houses  will  be  chiefly  the 
work  of  women.  As  we  all  know,  the  average  American 
man  has  a  strong  tendency  to  believe  that  art — whether  fine 
art  or  domestic  art — belongs  to  the  peculiarly  feminine 
sphere;  and  the  average  American  woman  has  no  hesita^on 
in  accepting  the  responsibility  which  is  thereby  thrown  upon 
her.  Her  influence  is  very  certain  to  be  felt  much  more 
decidedly  in  the  near  future,  and  during  the  present  phase 
of  American  interior  decoration  this  influence  has  every 
chance  of  being  positive  and  wholesome.  A  woman  natu- 
rally feels  much  more  at  home  in  the  rearrangement  of  old 
furniture  and  stuffs  than  in  the  designing  of  new  fabrics  and 
forms.  A  part  at  least  of  the  extreme  decorative  conserva- 
tism of  this  country  is  due  to  the  desire  of  American  women 
for  the  guaranteed  European  trade-mark  or  crest;  and  from 
the  stories  one  hears  one  is  inclined  to  believe  that  a  "  pala- 
tial "  residence  is  sometimes  the  rich  American  girl's  com- 
pensation for  the  absence  of  a  "  palatial  "  husband.  But  the 
truth  is,  of  course,  that  the  fascination  exercised  by  the 
European  decorative  remnants  infects  us  all  very  much 
alike,  and  that  the  occasional  feminine  ambition  for  a  coro- 
net is  only  one  expression  of  it. 

[467] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

If,  however,  the  very  best  promise  of  American  deco- 
rative improvement  lies  in  the  increased  interest  which  the 
American  woman  will  take  in  her  own  house,  and  her  in- 
creased familiarity  with  good  interior  forms  and  materials, 
the  worst  danger  is  the  excessive  influence  exerted  by  cer- 
tain firms  of  professional  decorators.  This  influence  is 
wholly  different  from  that  of  the  architects.  Designers  such 
as  McKim,  Mead  and  White,  Ernest  Flagg,  or  Carrere  and 
Hastings  can  not,  as  we  have  said,  at  best  give  clients  any- 
thing better  than  a  series  of  rooms,  which  are  impersonally 
though  frequently  extremely  beautiful ;  but  they  at  least  pos- 
sess good  taste  and  a  proper  sense  of  moderation.  While  they 
assiduously  seek  to  persuade  their  clients  to  spend  as  much 
money  as  they  can,  they  assuredly  try  to  spend  that  money  in 
the  client's  own  interest.  Occasionally  they  may  fall  into  a 
certain  extravagance,  but  for  the  most  part  the  reckless  pro- 
fusion of  expenditure,  the  general  atmosphere  of  luxurious 
and  meretricious  superfluity  is  the  work  rather  of  professional 
decorators.  They  have  a  direct  interest,  which  the  archi- 
tects have  not,  in  overloading  the  rooms  of  their  clients  with 
miscellaneous  lots  of  old  furniture  and  stufifs,  until  the  gen- 
eral effect  is  hopelessly  incoherent  and  dull  as  that  of  a 
furniture  shop ;  and  their  influence  with  certain  rich  clients 
does  a  great  deal  to  lower  the  average  tone  of  American  in- 
terior decoration.  Undoubtedly  there  are  among  these  pro- 
fessional decorators  some  few  who  are  capable  of  doing  very 

[468] 


Roslyn,   L.    I.  McKim,  Mead  &  White,   Architects. 

ANOTHER    VIEW    OF    THE    DRAWING-ROOM    IN    THE    RESIDENCE    OF 

CLARENCE    MACKAY. 


THE  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

excellent  work;  but  as  a  matter  of  general  practise,  it  is 
certainly  very  rnuch  better  that  the  designing  and  the  trade 
aspects  of  interior  decorations  should  be  kept  apart,  and  that 
it  should  not  be  to  the  interest  of  the  designer  to  furnish  more 
furniture  and  materials  than  the  design  calls  for.  It  is  bet- 
ter also  for  the  general  effect  of  the  house  that  the  man  who 
determines  the  relations  and  proportions  of  the  rooms  should 
also  have,  subject  only  to  the  likes  and  dislikes  of  the  owner, 
control  of  the  selection  and  distribution  of  its  furniture  and 
hangings.  The  function  of  the  trade  decorators  should 
merely  be  that  of  collecting  and  selling  the  materials  which 
the  architect  needs. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  the  transference  of 
the  spoils  of  European  palaces  and  baronial  halls  to  the 
pretended  palaces  of  American  millionaires  constitutes  the 
whole  of  American  interior  decoration.  Even  in  those 
houses  which  are  most  completely  furnished  with  European 
remnants,  a  great  deal  of  original  designing  in  woodwork, 
metalwork,  and  the  like  is  necessary,  and  the  standard  of 
these  designs  must,  of  course,  be  excellent  in  order  that  they 
appear  at  home  in  such  "  swell  "  surroundings.  Moreover, 
the  architects  are  coming  more  and  more  to  design  rooms,  as 
they  do  fagades,  in  certain  particular  French  styles — making 
only  such  modifications  as  the  dimensions  and  the  purpose 
of  the  room  may  demand.  These  rooms  are  for  the  most 
part  much  less  interesting  than  those  in  which  no  set  and 

[473] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

particular  style  has  been  adopted.  The  great  successes  of 
American  interior  decoration  have  been  achieved  in  houses 
in  which  stylistic  purity  was  ignored,  and  which  reached 
really  original  effects  by  novel  combinations  of  old  and 
probably  heterogeneous  materials.  Individual  rooms  in  these 
houses,  such  as  a  music  room  or  a  boudoir,  might  be  deco- 
rated successfully  in  a  definite  French  manner;  but  the  fact 
that  so  many  of  the  stufifs  and  so  much  of  the  furniture  be- 
longed to  no  well-matured  and  coherent  style,  but  were 
derived  sometimes  from  churches,  sometimes  from  castles, 
sometimes  from  palaces,  or  sometimes  from  the  house  of  a 
well-to-do  tradesman,  laid  the  designer  under  the  necessity 
of  depending  for  his  composition  upon  himself,  with  the 
eflfect  frequently,  is  we  have  said,  of  great  freshness  and 
novelty.  The  rooms  designed  in  a  definite  style,  while  they 
may  be  pretty  and  quaint,  tend  as  often  as  not  to  become, 
like  the  exteriors,  merely  scholastic  and  correct,  and  one 
would  regard  this  tendency  as  unfortunate,  although  inevi- 
table, were  it  not  that  it  has  the  incidental  advantage  of 
necessitating  the  actual  performance  of  certain  difficult  and 
delicate  work  by  American  craftsmen. 

Few  people  outside  the  profession  realize  how  much  the 
architects  have  been  hampered  throughout  the  whole  renais- 
sance of  interior  decoration  during  the  past  twenty-five  years 
by  the  deficient  training  of  the  American  mechanic.  Our 
better  architects  have  been  obliged  not  merely  to  educate 

[474] 


THE  MODERN   RESIDENCE 

themselves  and  their  clients,  but  their  handicraftsmen.  The 
really  skilled  mechanic  had  almost  wholly  disappeared  dur- 
ing the  dark  "  Middle  Age."  Technical  education  in  the 
building  trades,  as  in  other  branches  of  industry,  was  con- 
fined to  the  cruder  processes.  The  stone-cutters,  wood- 
workers, metal-workers,  and  plasterers  had  not  only  lost  all 
familiarity  with  good  forms,  but  were  without  the  necessary 
training  to  execute  anything  but  familiar  routine  plans,  and 
the  architect,  consequently,  even  if  he  had  been  more  ambi- 
tious than  he  was  to  use  original  designs,  would  have  been 
forced  to  bring  over  European  handiwork. 

During  the  "  middle  period  "  the  making  of  the  interior 
finish  of  houses  had  gradually  ceased  to  be  anything  but  an 
ordinary  manufacturing  business.  An  American  always 
tries  to  dispense  as  far  as  he  can  with  hand  labor,  and  to  use 
duplicating  machinery,  the  virtue  of  whose  product  consists 
in  precise  repetitions.  Consequently  any  disposition  to  vary 
the  profile  of  a  molding  from  that  which  was  given  in  the 
published  catalogues  was  regarded  as  a  foolish  and  wasteful 
expense;  and  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  add  that  the  forms 
and  methods  of  these  factories  were,  from  the  view-point 
even  of  technical  excellence,  wholly  detestable.  Neither 
was  this  factory  work  confined  merely  to  cheap  dwellings. 
It  was  applied  as  freely  to  the  houses  of  rich  as  to  the  houses 
of  poor  people,  the  only  difference  being  that  in  the  first  case 
there  was  more  of  it  and  it  was  more  elaborate.     There  was 

[  477  ] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

frequently  so  much  of  it,  indeed,  that  the  walls  of  the  chief 
rooms  of  a  rich  New  Yorker's  house  during  the  period  im- 
mediately succeeding  the  war  were,  as  a  rule,  completely 
enveloped  by  it. 

Thus,  at  the  beginning  of  the  Modern  Era,  the  trained 
architect  was  handicapped  in  every  possible  manner;  and 
every  architect  of  the  early  period  has  a  pathetic  story  to 
tell  of  the  stubborn  tenacity  necessary  to  the  realization  of 
his  least  ambitious  plans.  His  best  assistance  at  the  time 
came  from  the  immigrant.  A  certain  small  proportion  of 
the  newcomers  were  always  well-trained  craftsmen,  and 
most  of  the  good  work  done  during  the  early  period  was 
produced  by  tools  in  the  hands  of  Englishmen  and  Germans. 
The  factory  system  was,  however,  so  firmly  established  that 
architects  could  not  get  along  without  factory  products,  and 
it  was  the  character  of  these  factory  products  which  most 
needed  improvement,  and  were  most  difficult  to  improve. 
The  improvement,  of  course,  had  to  begin  at  the  top.  The 
training  of  a  large  body  of  skilled  artisans  and  the  elevation 
of  the  general  factory  standard  were  steps  that  could  not  be 
taken  in  a  day,  and  indeed  have  not  yet  been  taken;  but  to 
supply  the  special  customer,  small  shops,  with  a  small  work- 
ing force  under  the  direction  of  a  skilled  employer,  came 
into  existence,  and  in  the  course  of  time  these  small  factories 
not  only  gained  in  the  volume  and  excellence  of  their  prod- 
uct, but  served  as  schools  for  the  training  of  a  better  class 

[  478  ] 


THE  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

of  artisans.  At  the  same  time  technical  schools  were  spring- 
ing up  all  over  the  country,  and  were  doing  something  more 
every  year  to  improve  standards  and  methods  v^^hich  pre- 
vailed in  the  industrial  arts. 

How  enormous  the  improvement  has  been  can  not  be 
appreciated  unless  one  carefully  compares  the  average  work 
of  twenty  years  ago  with  the  average  work  of  to-day;  and 
the  improvement  would  be  still  greater  if  a  comparison 
were  made  only  between  the  best  work  of  the  two  periods. 
One  by  one  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  century  the  different 
industries  connected  with  the  decorative  arts  were  imported, 
established,  and  developed,  among  which  may  be  mentioned 
such  trades  as  bronze  and  ironwork,  hardware,  wall-papers, 
decorative  marbles,  mosaic,  stained  glass,  fabrics  of  all  kinds, 
and  tapestries ;  and  the  whole  of  this  development  originated 
in  the  demand  of  the  skilled  architect  for  a  higher  grade  of 
work  upon  the  modern  residence.  From  the  beginning  the 
better  class  of  master  artisans  worked  hand  in  hand  with 
the  better  architects;  and  while  the  methods  used  in  the 
industrial  arts,  the  standards  which  prevail,  and  the  enthu- 
siasm they  arouse  are  still  much  inferior  to  those  of  Europe, 
the  tendency  in  the  direction  of  better  things  has  obtained 
so  much  momentum  that  it  needs  very  much  less  coaxing  and 
encouragement  than  formerly. 

In  the  development  of  the  decorative  crafts  the  first  to 
receive  attention  was  wood-carving.     It  was  the  line  of  least 

[483] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

resistance  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  line  on  which  most 
force  was  needed  to  be  exerted.  Bad  as  American  wood- 
work was  a  generation  ago,  it  was  and  continued  to  be  the 
natural,  local  material  for  both  structure  and  decoration. 
It  was  so  cheap,  people  were  so  much  accustomed  to  it,  the 
demand  for  it  was  so  universal,  that  the  improvement  of  its 
forms  was  the  first  and  most  essential  step  in  raising  the 
general  standard  of  interior  decoration.  In  beginning  to 
efifect  this  improvement,  the  earlier  architects  were  much 
assisted  by  the  fact  that  the  Eastlakian  reform  in  its  influ- 
ence on  American  interiors  was  embodied  chiefly  in  wood- 
work; and  while  the  grotesque  forms  developed  at  this  time 
had  to  be  thrown  away,  the  work  of  turning  them  out  had 
necessarily  bestowed  a  training  on  certain  American  cabinet- 
makers. The  Queen  Anne  movement,  also,  if  it  had  any 
good  influence  at  all,  probably  improved  the  average  of 
American  decorative  carpentry.  In  the  greater  residence  of 
to-day  woodwork,  while  playing  an  important  part,  is,  on 
the  whole,  much  less  important  than  it  has  been  at  any  pre- 
vious period  of  American  residential  architecture.  The 
wonderful  wooden  mantelpieces  which  used  in  the  "  seven- 
ties "  to  dominate  the  rooms  of  rich  New  Yorkers,  have 
disappeared,  and  stone  mantelpieces,  frequently  imported, 
have  taken  their  place.  The  halls  and  drawing-rooms  also 
contain  much  less  cabinet-work  than  formerly,  while  elegant 
metal  railings  often  supersede  the  former  wooden  balusters. 

[  484  ] 


THE  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

The  libraries,  dining  and  smoking  rooms  are  still  generally 
paneled,  and  timbered  ceilings  are  more  common  than  ever; 
but  there  is  a  certain  tendency  to  dispense,  as  far  as  possible, 
with  both  wood  and  paper.  This  tendency  prevails,  how- 
ever, only  in  the  most  elaborate  houses.  In  the  dwellings 
of  ordinarily  well-to-do  people,  the  interiors  of  which,  when 
they  have  any  character  at  all,  generally  verge  on  the  colo- 
nial, wood  is  as  omnipresent  as  ever,  but  fortunately  it  is 
used,  as  often  as  not,  with  some  discretion  and  good  taste. 

During  the  colonial  period  stone-carvers  were  scarcer 
and  less  in  demand  than  any  other  class  of  mechanics,  and  it 
was  not  until  the  distinctively  modern  period  began  that 
stone,  except  in  the  case  of  New  York  brownstone,  was  very 
considerably  used  in  American  dwellings.  Of  late  years, 
however,  the  majority  of  the  greater  residences  have  been  at 
least  veneered  with  stone,  of  which  there  is  a  large  variety 
available,  some  of  it  most  excellent  both  in  the  surface 
it  presents  and  the  opportunity  it  offers  the  stone-carver. 
Much  of  this  tooling  is  done  by  machine,  with  the  usual  loss 
of  effect;  but  much  of  it,  also,  is  done  by  hand,  and  the  bet- 
ter architects  are  making  ever-increasing  demands  for  expert 
cutting.  Leopold  Eidlitz  and  Richardson  were  the  first 
architects  to  insist  on  a  good  deal  of  careful  chiseling. 
Richardson,  in  particular,  was  a  gigantic  stimulus.  As  he 
himself  said,  "  I  love  to  punch  holes  in  a  stone  wall;  "  but, 
more  than  this,  his  peculiar  manner  of  design,   his  heavy 

[489] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

friezes,  and  sturdy  columns  called  for  a  great  deal  of  monu- 
mental stone-carving.  It  may  almost  be  said,  indeed,  that 
he  domesticated  architectural  carving  in  this  country;  and 
in  this  task  he  was  even  more  than  ably  seconded  by  the 
elder  Hunt.  Some  of  the  finest  American  stone-carving  is 
to  be  found  on  the  residences  designed  by  Mr.  Hunt — par- 
ticularly on  the  dwellings  of  Mr.  W.  K.  Vanderbilt  on  the 
corner  of  Fifth  Avenue  and  Fifty-second  Street.  It  is  in 
detail  of  this  kind,  however,  that  there  is  still  the  greatest 
room  for  improvement  in  American  design,  and  it  may  be 
confidently  predicted  that  the  American  stone-cutter  will 
every  year  cut  proportionately  more  stone  than  he  does  at 
present,  and  cut  it  better. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  trace  this  process  of  development 
through  all  the  various  crafts.  In  the  growth  of  the  de- 
mand for  more  varied  decorative  effects,  opportunities  were 
provided  for  the  iron-worker,  the  bronze-worker,  the  stained- 
glass  maker,  the  ornamental  plasterer,  and  the  hardware 
manufacturer.  The  extent  to  which  native  American  work 
has  been  demanded  has  varied  with  the  extent  to  which  it 
was  possible  to  import  available  foreign  antiques.  The  fur- 
niture, fabrics,  and  tapestries  can  be  readily  imported,  and 
have  been  imported  in  such  large  quantities  that,  although 
local  makers  of  these  products  are  gaining  ground,  the  im- 
ported product  still  dominates  the  situation.  Ironwork  and 
bronzework,  while  brought  over  in  large  quantities,  is  being 

[  490  ] 


THE  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

designed  and  wrought  more  than  ever  on  this  side,  while 
the  ornamental  plastering  is,  of  course,  exclusively  of  Amer- 
ican manufacture.  The  hardware  also,  although  more  or 
less  importable,  is  naturally  made  for  the  most  part  in  this 
country,  because  the  modern  American  demands  a  stand- 
ard of  convenience  in  his  metal  fixtures  which  the  older 
hardware,  however  beautiful,  did  not  possess.  The  best 
hardware  manufacturers  are  fully  equipped  to  turn  out  all 
the  hardware  used  in  a  dwelling  from  special  designs  har- 
monizing with  the  prevailing  historic  styles  of  particular 
rooms. 

It  stands  to  reason  that  the  existing  predominance  of 
imported  "  antiques  "  in  the  decoration  of  the  greater  Amer- 
ican dwellings  can  not  last  indefinitely.  The  supply  of 
really  good  pieces  and  really  beautiful  tapestries  has  already 
become  so  much  diminished  that  their  prices  have  increased 
enormously — so  largely  that  the  reproduction  of  imitation 
''  antiques  "  has  become  a  recognized  industry.  By  imita- 
tion "  antiques  "  we  do  not  mean  frank  contemporary  repro- 
ductions of  old  designs  or  copies  of  old  models.  We  mean 
furniture  or  fabrics  of  modern  origin  but  old  design,  which 
have  been  carefully  and  elaborately  "  doctored  "  so  as  to  make 
them  resemble  as  nearly  as  possible  the  real  old  thing.  Of 
course,  it  may  be  objected  that  such  imitations  are  not  quite 
legitimate,  provided  even  that  they  are  not  sold  as  originals; 
but  if  American  taste  continues  to  demand  the  "  tone  of  time  " 

[493] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

in  its  most  beautiful  rooms,  there  will  be  nothing  for  it  but 
to  elaborate  carefully  the  processes  whereby  the  newness  of 
modern  reproductions  is  tempered  and  mellowed.  But  if  this 
work  of  imitation  is  legitimate,  as  long  as  it  continues  whole- 
some for  Americans  to  use  and  reproduce  the  "  faded  and 
figured  "  effects  of  old  French  and  Italian  rooms,  it  will,  in 
the  course  of  time,  assuredly  lose  this  legitimacy  and  whole- 
someness.  It  is  very  well  for  Americans  in  the  beginning  to 
domesticate  the  best  European  styles  and  forms  of  interior 
decoration;  it  is  very  well  for  them  to  seek  and  cherish  time- 
honored  domestic  properties;  but  an  indefinite  persistence  in 
that  attitude  would  be  a  clear  confession  of  both  incompe- 
tence and  esthetic  sterility.  The  time  will  come,  and  that 
within  the  next  twenty  years,  when  both  the  owners  of  houses 
and  their  architects  will  and  should  become  tired  of  borrow- 
ing and  reproducing  old  things,  and  will  seek  either  to  find 
some  fresh  source  of  imitation  or  some  local  modifications 
of  the  familiar  forms. 

Unless  all  precedents  fail,  we  shall  in  the  beginning  seek 
some  fresh  source  of  imitation,  and  that  fresh  source  of  imi- 
tation can  only  be  what  is  known  as  "  L'Art  Nouveau  "  in 
Paris,  and  the  "  Jugend  "  Style  in  Germany.  Hitherto  these 
very  modern  forms  of  industrial  art  have  met  w^ith  small 
favor  in  this  country,  because  Americans  instinctively  felt 
that  what  they  needed  decoratively  was  the  good  safe  thing 
and   not  the   latest   innovations.     But   the   "  New   Art "   of 

[  494  ] 


THE  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

Europe  will,  in  the  course  of  time,  lose  this  extremely  fresh 
and  dubious  character.  It  has  undoubtedly  come  to  stay 
and  will  establish  precedents  and  conventions  of  its  own.  It 
will,  that  is,  inevitably  become  more  sober  and  respectable; 
and  when  that  time  arrives  American  designers  will  be 
obliged  in  some  way  to  come  to  terms  with  it.  Trained  as 
they  are  abroad,  and  keeping  as  they  do  one  eye  constantly 
fixed  on  foreign  practise,  they  can  not  ignore  the  New  Art; 
and  while  the  process  of  introducing  it  will  constitute  a  good 
deal  of  an  experiment  and  will  inject  some  very  rebellious 
ideals  and  forms  into  American  interior  decoration,  its  in- 
troduction will  have  one  great  advantage — it  should  do  more 
than  anything  else  to  raise  the  technical  standard  of  the  in- 
dustrial art  work  in  this  country. 

Whatever  the  esthetic  merits  of  the  "  New  Art,"  it  has 
certainly  had,  both  in  France  and  Germany,  the  great  virtue 
of  creating  a  body  of  sincere,  enthusiastic,  enterprising,  and 
conscientious  craftsmen.  It  stands  for  an  ideal  of  technical 
achievement  almost  as  high  as  that  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  forms  could  not  be  imported  into  this  country  without 
fetching  with  them  the  ideals  that  accompany  them,  and  such 
ideals  are  the  great  necessity  of  American  interior  decora- 
tive work.  Just  as  the  greatest  advantage  of  the  Beaux-Arts 
training  for  American  architects  is  the  technical  standards 
and  training  which  that  school  represents,  so  the  "  New  Art  " 
of  Europe  could  not  but  make  American  craftsmen  put  more 

[  499  ] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

enthusiasm,  training,  conscience,  and  energy  into  their  call- 
ing. If  they  accepted,  that  is,  the  standards  of  the  "  New 
Art "  sincerely,  they  would  be  obliged,  not  merely  to  seek  a 
more  modern  and  personal  note  in  their  various  products, 
but  they  would  be  obliged  particularly  to  spare  no  effort  in 
doing  the  work  well.  It  is,  no  doubt,  entirely  possible  that 
the  desire  for  a  more  original  and  modern  industrial  art  will 
be  satisfied  by  some  interesting  local  modifications  of  the  old 
forms  now  in  use,  and  that  is  assuredly  the  kind  of  develop- 
ment in  the  industrial  arts  which  would  be  most  continuous 
and  promising;  but  whatever  the  forms,  the  spirit  and 
method  must  be  that  which  inspires  the  New  Art  of  Europe. 
The  craftsmen  of  whom  we  are  now  writing  are  not,  of 
course,  the  mechanics  who  execute  the  designs  of  other  peo- 
ple, but  men  who  are  both  designers  and  artisans.  Of  these 
there  are  comparatively  few  in  this  country  at  present.  Our 
artisans  have  absolutely  no  power  of  design,  and  are  only 
beginning  to  be  equal  to  the  task  of  carrying  out  the  difficult 
designs  of  other  people.  Our  artists,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
interested  almost  exclusively  in  the  fine  arts.  The  "  arts  and 
crafts  "  movement,  which  is  putting  forth  a  tender  growth  be- 
tween the  thrifty  vegetation  of  the  mechanic  and  the  artist,  has 
still  much  of  the  aspect  and  atmosphere  of  a  fad.  It  has  no 
recognized  industrial  basis,  but  depends  upon  special  patron- 
age and  regular  subsidizing.  The  most  encouraging  aspect 
of  the  existing  situation  is  the  extent  to  which  men,  trained 

[500] 


THE  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

exclusively  in  the  fine  arts,  are,  owing  to  the  demand  for  cer- 
tain kinds  of  decorative  art,  taking  up  various  branches  of 
interior  decoration.  Not  only,  of  course,  is  the  number  of 
mural  painters  and  the  number  of  painters  who  design  glass 
increasing  every  year  in  order  to  keep  pace  with  the  demand 
for  this  kind  of  work,  but  very  much  the  same  thing  i§  hap- 
pening to  sculptors.  Architectural  sculpture,  whether  ex- 
terior or  interior,  is  an  ever-increasing  division  of  sculptural 
work,  and  is  engaging  the  attention  of  the  best  American 
sculptors.  In  one  notable  case,  a  prominent  landscape 
painter  has  become  by  easy  transition  an  equally  prominent 
landscape  architect.  It  is  safe  to  say  also  that  the  closer 
these  artists  have  become  identified  with  the  exterior  or  in- 
terior of  buildings,  the  more  prosperous  they  have  become. 
This  is  undoubtedly  the  line  along  which  American  deco- 
rative and  industrial  art  may  be  expected  to  advance,  and 
which  offers  the  best  promise  for  the  immediate  future.  We 
have  more  painters  than  we  need,  and  many  of  them  whose 
work  is  excellent  languish  in  obscurity  and  poverty.  If  it 
can  once  be  shown  that  the  taste  and  imagination  they  pos- 
sess will  be  better  recognized  and  remunerated  in  case  they 
become,  as  so  many  fine  artists  in  France  have  become,  art 
artisans,  they  may  be  persuaded  to  give  themselves  to  the 
industrial  arts. 

The  greater  contemporary  residence,  while  it  is  chiefly 
designed  in  order  to  restore  certain  efifects  of  age  and  old- 

[505] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

world  magnificence,  nevertheless  owes  a  good  deal  to  Amer- 
ican art  decoration.  Many  of  these  residences  contain  either 
mural  paintings  or  reliefs,  or  both,  from  the  hands  of  one  or 
more  of  the  better  American  artists.  There  is  not  as  much 
of  this  sort  of  thing  as  one  would  like,  but  still  there  is 
enough  of  it  in  dwellings  such  as  that  of  Mrs.  C.  P.  Hunt- 
ington, the  residence  of  Spencer  Trask  at  Saratoga,  Geor- 
gian Court,  "  Idle  Hour  "  at  Oakdale,  and  the  several  other 
Vanderbilt  residences,  to  suggest  that  some  such  decoration 
or  relief  is  destined  to  become  a  recognized  part  of  every 
really  fine  residence.  Architects  are  undoubtedly  trying  to 
encourage  this  idea.  They  supply  opportunities  for  their 
friends  the  painters  and  the  sculptors  wherever  they  can, 
although  the  few  merely  decorative  and  public  rooms  in  a 
residence  offer  only  a  limited  scope  for  this  kind  of  adorn- 
ment; and  it  is  undoubtedly  the  very  best  use  to  which  the 
talent  for  design  of  these  painters  and  sculptors  can  be  put. 
The  architects,  did  they  have  the  chance,  would  do  quite  as 
much  to  encourage  the  other  more  modest  branches  of  Amer- 
ican industrial  and  decorative  art,  and  the  amount  of  money 
which  rich  men  are  willing  to  spend  for  objects  which  are 
striking  and  properly  guaranteed  ofifers  to  native  art  artisans 
an  inexhaustible  field  for  cultivation.  If  American  indus- 
try has  been  remorselessly  practical,  American  art,  owing  to 
an  inevitable  reaction,  has  not  been  practical  enough.  Both 
the  big  rewards  and  the  effective  influence  are  bestowed  on 

[506] 


New  York  City 


^e   B.    Post,    Architect, 


MOORISH  ROOM   IN  THE  RESIDENCE  OF  THE  LATE  CORNELIUS   VANDERBILT. 


THE  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

those  who  find  some  method  of  using  their  talent  and  train- 
ing to  satisfy  a  useful,  popular  demand. 

The  American  architect,  the  best  paid  and  most  widely 
recognized  of  American  artists,  has,  as  we  have  already  ob- 
served, felt  the  influence  of  these  too  exclusively  esthetic 
standards.  His  strongest  point  consists  in  his  talent  for  de- 
sign, and  if,  for  pecuniary  reasons,  some  sacrifice  is  neces- 
sary, he  will  almost  always  prefer  a  cheap  structure  to  a  less 
effective  fagade.  American  engineers  have  originated  some 
very  excellent  methods  of  construction  which  the  architect 
is  frequently  called  upon  to  use,  but  in  relation  to  which  he 
has  never  attempted  to  adapt  his  designs.  Nevertheless,  the 
leading  American  architects  are  far  from  being  impractical 
men,  for  if  they  were  they  could  not  give  the  satisfaction 
which  they  apparently  do  to  their  very  business-like  clients. 
The  practical  considerations,  however,  which  they  keep  in 
mind  are  only  those  which  appeal  to  their  employers.  The 
latter  may  not  know  much  about  structure,  but  he  does  want 
a  convenient  house,  and  such  the  architects  give  him.  What- 
ever the  esthetic  merits  of  the  greater  dwelling  of  to-day, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  is  the  best  appointed  and  most 
comfortable  residence  which  has  hitherto  been  erected  either 
in  America  or  any  other  country.  This  is  an  aspect  of  the 
interior  of  the  greater  contemporary  dwelling  which  de- 
serves in  itself  a  much  more  careful  and  elaborate  consid- 
eration than  it  can  obtain  within  the  scope  and  limits  of  this 

[  509  ] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

book.  We  have  been  considering  these  dwellings  chiefly 
from  the  social  and  esthetic  point  of  view,  and  have  not 
attempted  to  describe  or  illustrate  either  their  structure, 
plan,  or  mechanical  equipment  except  by  incidental  refer- 
ences. Yet  while  it  is  the  striking  appearance  and  magnifi- 
cent scale  of  these  buildings  which  most  impresses  unpro- 
fessional observers,  both  American  and  foreign,  what  chiefly 
impresses  professional  foreign  observers  is  distinctly  not 
their  appearance,  nor  still  less  their  structure,  but  rather  the 
excellence  of  their  planning  and  the  completeness  of  their 
mechanical  equipment. 

No  very  definite  type  of  plan  is  used,  any  more  than  any 
definite  type  of  design.  The  requirements  have  varied 
largely  in  different  houses,  and  in  satisfying  these  require- 
ments the  architects  have  not  been  embarrassed  by  inconve- 
nient precedents.  The  houses  are  planned  to  accommodate 
fairly  large  families,  at  the  outside  a  score  or  two  of  guests 
and  a  certain  correspondingly  large  number  of  servants. 
The  number  of  these  servants  is  not,  however,  as  consider- 
able as  it  would  be  in  a  European  mansion  on  a  correspond- 
ing scale,  because  the  expense  of  domestic  labor  in  this 
country  is  a  consideration  even  to  millionaires,  and  this 
necessity  of  economizing  service  has  in  all  grades  of  Amer- 
ican dwellings  done  much  to  keep  the  houses  compact  and 
their  internal  arrangement  convenient. 

The  great  convenience  and  merit  of  these  arrangements 

[510] 


New  York  City.  George   B.    Post,   Architect. 

STAIRWAY    IN    THE    RESIDENCE    OF    THE    LATE    CORNELIUS    VANDERBILT. 


New  York  City. 


Geurge  B.    Post,   Architect. 


DINING-ROOM    MANTELPIECE    IN    THE    RESIDENCE    OF    THE    LATE 
CORNELIUS    VANDERBILT. 


THE  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

consists  chiefly  in  grouping  properly  together  the  different 
rooms  devoted  to  a  particular  kind  of  service.  Thus,  in 
every  house  of  any  size  there  are  a  certain  number  of  rooms 
which  are  meant  for  public  assemblage — such  as  the  draw- 
ing-room and  dining-room;  certain  other  rooms  for  the 
household  business  and  the  people  who  attend  to  it — such  as 
the  kitchen,  pantries,  servants'  hall  and  bedrooms;  and, 
finally,  certain  other  rooms,  which  are  personal  to  the  resi- 
dents of  the  house — such  as  private  sitting-rooms  and  bed- 
rooms. One  great  object  of  a  successful  plan  is  to  keep  the 
rooms  devoted  to  these  separate  functions  at  once  sufficiently 
separate  and  yet  properly  united.  The  servants  and  the  do- 
mestic business  should,  of  course,  be  kept  out  of  sight  just 
as  much  as  possible,  and  yet  should  be  so  situated  that  they 
can  obtain  ready  access  to  both  the  general  and  private  sit- 
ting-rooms; the  dining-room  must  be  convenient  to  the 
kitchen,  and  long  public  halls  are,  so  far  as  possible,  to  be 
avoided.  Besides  these  general  conditions  which  a  house- 
plan  should  satisfy,  there  are  many  special  requirements, 
varying  with  the  location  of  the  house  in  respect  to  the 
points  of  the  compass,  the  situation  of  the  gardens,  and  so 
forth.  But  the  great  merit  of  American  plans  which  has 
frequently  been  admired,  particularly  by  English  architects, 
is  the  ingenuity  with  which  the  plan  is  adapted  to  the  smooth 
working  of  the  domestic  machine,  to  the  concealment  of 
those  aspects  of  domestic  life  which  should  be  concealed, 

[515] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN   AMERICA 

and    to    the    effective    display    of    those    which    should    be 
displayed. 

The  most  prominent  room  in  the  great  American  city 
house  is,  of  course,  the  drawing-room,  which,  as  often  as  not, 
is  a  rather  frigid  apartment  in  some  conventional  French 
style.  Sometimes,  however,  it  is  modified  in  the  direction 
of  becoming  a  large  sitting-room — a  room,  that  is,  in  which 
the  family  would  like  to  assemble  when  they  were  not  enter- 
taining. In  the  country  house  there  is  a  decidedly  stronger 
tendency  to  do  away  with  the  mere  parlor  and  to  convert  the 
largest  room  in  the  house,  which  is  generally  a  most  spacious 
affair,  into  a  fine  big  living-room,  in  which  people  will  sit 
and  chat,  and  to  which  they  would  naturally  go  when  they 
wished  to  see  other  people.  This  tendency  has  given  an 
admirable  opportunity  to  the  interior  decorator  to  create  a 
really  new  type  of  room — one  that  is  of  "  palatial  "  dimen- 
sions, but  of  domestic  atmosphere  and  service.  Next  in 
importance  to  the  drawing-room  or  living-room  comes  the 
dining-room,  which  is  usually  paneled,  and  in  which  there 
tends  to  be  more  original  work  than  in  some  of  the  other 
apartments.  In  addition  to  these  rooms  there  are  others 
which  appeal  to  less  general  uses.  The  city  houses  nearly 
always  contain  libraries,  the  country  houses  containing  them 
much  less  often;  but  both  of  them  are  generally  fitted  with 
smoking  and  billiard  rooms  and  with  special  sitting-rooms 
for  the  women  of  the  family  and  their  guests.     The  more 

[516] 


'^%,r 


3HJ.  jO 


THE  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

"  palatial  "  houses  necessarily  make  a  great  deal  of  the  en- 
trance halls  and  grand  stairways,  some  of  which  are  of  really 
royal  effect;  but  these  entrance  halls  are  moderated  in  pro- 
portion as  the  building  assumes  a  domestic  character. 

The  plan  of  these  buildings  and  the  number  and  char- 
acter of  the  rooms  they  contain  is  a  much  less  definite 
arrangement  than  it  was  in  the  case  of  the  colonial  dwell- 
ing or,  indeed,  of  any  historic  type,  and  perhaps  their  most 
striking  characteristic  is  the  ingenuity  which  is  shown  in 
making  these  buildings  comfortable  and  their  appliances 
convenient.  Desire  for  such  comfort  and  success  in  attain- 
ing it  has  been  characteristic  of  American  domestic  archi- 
tecture of  all  grades  for  fifty  years  past,  but  only  recently 
has  the  success  been  equal  to  the  demand.  Now,  however, 
it  is  difficult  to  imagine  anything  more  complete  than  the 
arrangements  made  for  personal  comfort  in  the  best  of  these 
buildings.  In  the  cities  the  sub-basement  is  filled  with  ma- 
chinery to  provide  heat,  light,  and  hot  water;  in  the  country 
a  similar  purpose  is  served  by  the  large  power-house  which 
is  a  necessary  part  of  their  equipment.  By  these  means  the 
houses  are  kept  at  an  even  temperature  in  cold  weather,  but 
the  rooms  are  so  well  ventilated  that  the  heat  never  becomes 
excessive.  Electric  lights,  agreeably  subdued,  pervade  every 
room.  Automatic  elevators  are  ready  in  case  there  is  more 
than  one  stairway  to  climb.  The  house  and  the  whole  estate 
are  bound  together  by  a  complete  internal  telephone  system. 

•     [521] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

There  are  as  many,  or  almost  as  many,  bath-rooms  as  there 
are  bedrooms;  the  bedrooms  themselves  are  fitted  with  all 
kinds  of  ingenious  devices  for  the  convenient  disposition  of 
clothes ;  and  the  kitchen  ranges  are  efficient  and  flexible 
pieces  of  mechanism.  To  the  foreigner  there  is  frequently 
something  disagreeable  and  effeminate  in  the  completeness 
of  these  arrangements  for  personal  comfort,  but  they  have 
become  such  a  necessary  part,  not  merely  of  the  ease  of 
American  life,  but  of  its  economy,  that  the  neglect  of  such 
arrangements  is  inconceivable.  Moreover,  it  is  this  aspect 
of  American  building  which  the  foreigners  themselves  are 
imitating  most  assiduously.  The  amusing  part  of  this  in- 
genious and  elaborate  mechanism  is  the  way  in  which  it  is 
combined  with  a  wholly  different  scheme  of  decoration,  in 
such  wise  that  the  greater  American  residence  is  a  mixture 
of  the  most  modern  mechanical  improvements  with  the  most 
time-worn  decorative  relics.  A  better  illustration  could  not 
be  desired  of  the  peculiar  contrast  characteristic  of  Amer- 
ican life. 

Such,  then,  is  an  outline  sketch  of  the  greater  American 
residence,  past  and  present.  The  sketch  has  necessarily  been 
concerned  more  with  esthetic  and  social  terms  of  descrip- 
tion than  with  strictly  architectural  terms,  because  these 
dwellings,  except  during  the  colonial  period,  have  not  con- 
formed to  any  very  definite  type  either  in  plan,  structure,  or 
design.     They  are  a  combination  of  social  assumption  and 

[522] 


THE  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

architectural  experimentation,  the  product  being  given  an 
educational  twist,  because  anything  in  this  country  which 
both  meets  a  popular  demand  and  possesses  esthetic  merit 
must  become  educational.  This  is  the  aspect  of  the  matter 
which  foreigners  find  it  so  difficult  to  understand,  but  which 
must  be  constantly  kept  in  mind  in  order  to  make  a  just  crit- 
ical appraisal  of  the  movement. 

The  fact  which  stares  one  in  the  face  in  considering  these 
residences  is  the  incongruity  between  the  scenery  and  the 
actors.  It  has  been  necessary  again  and  again  in  this  de- 
scription to  point  out  how  deep-seated  this  incongruity  is, 
and  how  necessarily  anomalous  any  "  palatial  "  private  build- 
ing must  be  in  a  modern  democratic  industrial  community. 
Yet,  in  concluding  this  account,  we  do  not  want  to  leave  the 
impression  that  there  is  anything  perverse  about  these  incon- 
gruities, or  that  they  have  not  their  relative  justification. 

The  great  historic  dwellings  of  Europe  were  planned 
and  built  for  people  who  not  only  occupied  an  official  pub- 
lic position,  but  the  publicity  of  whose  lives  necessarilv 
invaded  their  homes.  A  French  chateau  or  an  Italian  pal- 
ace was  always  crowded  with  the  retainers  of  the  resident 
family,  the  members  of  which  had  no  idea  of  an  exclusive 
domestic  life  in  the  modern  sense  of  that  phrase.  Their 
houses  were  really  public  buildings,  and  in  that  respect  dif- 
fered radically  even  from  the  palaces  of  the  reigning  Euro- 
pean  families   of   to-day.      Just   because   they   were   public 

[525] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

dwellings  they  could  with  propriety  be  impersonally  mag- 
nificent. They  did  not  need  any  more  individual  char- 
acter than  that  which  a  great  contemporary  club-house 
displays. 

The  combination  of  wealth,  social  position,  and  the  desire 
for  privacy  came  in  during  the  eighteenth  century,  and  then 
chiefly  in  England.  The  English  lord  possessed  wealth  and 
position,  yet  he  wanted  a  certain  kind  of  privacy.  The  peo- 
ple with  whom  he  liked  to  fill  his  house  were  not  dependents, 
but  social  equals,  and  his  residence  was  adapted  both  to  a 
certain  amount  of  privacy  and  a  certain  amount  of  social 
display.  Happily,  however,  in  his  case,  the  display  was  the 
natural  outcome  of  a  great  inherited  social  position.  His 
galleries,  his  portraits,  his  Jacobean  woodwork,  his  tapes- 
tries, the  whole  splendid  array  of  his  domestic  appurtenances 
had  come  to  him  with  his  title,  and  his  dwelling  could  not 
but  be  as  distinguished  as  that  of  his  forebears,  while  at  the 
same  time  undergoing  continual  adaptations  to  more  mod- 
ern domestic  ideas.  In  this  way  the  great  English  dwell- 
ings have  become  what  we  should  like  the  rich  American's 
to  be — highly  distinguished  and  yet  thoroughly  domestic. 

The  amount  and  kind  of  publicity  which  the  life  of  a 
rich  American  should  normally  contain  is  very  much  like 
that  of  an  English  nobleman.  He  needs  a  fine,  large  dwell- 
ing commensurate  with  the  scale  of  his  own  life  and  in 
which  he  can  entertain  his  associates.     It  is  not  enough  that 

[526] 


THE  MODERN  RESIDENCE 

this  dwelling  should  be  merely  comfortable  and  home-like. 
The  mid-century  American  residence,  the  most  vulgar  type 
of  dwelling  ever  erected  by  man,  was  both  comfortable  and 
home-like.  He  wants  it  also  to  be  attractive  and  magnifi- 
cent, but  unfortunately  in  making  it  attractive  and  magnifi- 
cent he  can  not  call  upon  his  ancestors  to  help  him;  he  can 
only  call  upon  his  architect.  What  wonder,  then,  that  he 
occasionally  builds  himself  a  big  club-house  in  which  the 
desire  for  magnificence  and  distinction  has  overpowered  any 
genuine  domestic  atmosphere? 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  domesticity  is  in  the 
blood,  while  the  distinction  has  to  be  acquired.  While 
American  dwellings  of  all  types  will,  we  may  feel  sure,  come 
out  sufficiently  homely  and  individual  because  of  the  fun- 
damental sincerity  of  the  American  character,  great  and  con- 
tinual exertions  will  be  needed  to  keep  the  naturally  sincere 
and  domestic  feelings  expressed  in  really  distinguished  and 
edifying  forms.  That  efifort  will  have  to  be  made  for  an- 
other generation  at  least,  chiefly  by  the  American  architect; 
and  during  all  this  transitional  period,  while  popular  ideas 
are  mostly  bad  and  while  a  good  convention  is  receiving  the 
confirmation  of  time,  critics  should  be  extremely  tolerant  of 
the  sort  of  incongruities  which  the  greater  residences  so 
frequently  contain.  For  the  present  it  is  absolutely  ne- 
cessary that  architects  should  be  trusted  by  their  clients, 
and  that  the  greater  residences  should  remain  chiefly  their 

[S3I] 


STATELY  HOMES  IN  AMERICA 

work.  The  specifically  individual  and  domestic  additions 
can  be  made  little  by  little,  as  taste  improves,  conventions 
are  established,  and  social  forms  become  comparatively 
permanent. 


THE  END 


[532] 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 


^ST  DATE 


LOAN  DEPT.  ! 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or       50  CENTS 
on  the  date  to  which  renewed.  i  To  return 

Renewed  books  are  sub jert  to  immediate  recall.         ^e  penalty 

— pTHE  FQIlDTu 


SANTA  CRUZ 


OCT  2  7  1974  9  fi 


5K  ^^^^^'"^^ 


ALL  BOOKS  A^Y  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAVc 


DUE  AS  STAMPgn  RCi  nyy. 


--S££JL5_igE 


REt.  viK.    OCT  16  tS73 


)'PIVl 


FORM  .0.  DD6,  .0., , . /^r  ^^s^?:::T,T.o'«<E^^v 


®$ 


,l^.„9..?^f^*<ELEY  LIBRARIES 


CD5tlD•=^^D77 


i. 


A'^  7  ^05 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


